People in quite a few countries I've been to are more and more reluctant to try and form a relationship with a stranger, especially one who does not seem outgoing. No idea about the root cause of this general mistrust.

It's also easier to have substitute "network" relationships which are not complete.

Abd it shows we're geared towards living in relatively small communities whee everyone knows everyone, but new forced mobility breaks that, and so do long work hours. (I believe the optimum size is somewhere around 10k and average 30h workweek, more bursty.)

My personal solution to what almost happened to me was to fix the underlying problem with medication and start building from ground up. It took two lost years of my life (funny enough, during studies) and it's always a risk of relapse...

The solution is unfortunately to get really creative in finding actual humanity around. It's rare but happens.

It is actually quite hard for an adult to find an actual connection who isn't a spouse nowadays. You get to dig into weird social spaces like clubs (some are really niche too) and there are few guarantees. It's also for some reason harder for men because women still tend to build minimum social groups as a reflex ("coffee clatches" or rumour Mills)

A lot of it is extremely superficial too which can be annoying.

I guess that's true if you consider churches weird. Some are weird. Most are full of fairly normal people. Other than the desire to focus on growing as people. And, depending on your area, the theism.

But all the other desires and concerns you list are met by millions of people by going to church. And participating! Just like university, it's possible to go while essentially being disconnected from everyone.

And if the concern is the weirdness, most churches would be more than happy to let folks join in on activities and charitable work with no theological or financial commitments. I've never seen religious tests in churches other than to be a teacher of religion, which makes sense.

Starting with the caveat of “not all churches”, but it is a very common trend.

Churches have a weird entry criteria - you have to believe in their god (which can be offensive when it’s phrased like “you are incapable of handling your own life, leave it to God”). And if you don’t, you’re silently and persistently pressured into making that conversion, with a healthy dose of pity for you and your sinful ways.

I've never been to a church that required people to believe anything in order to engage in any particular way. Except to become a teacher or minister or priest, but that's fairly common sense I think.

But, yes, people will often discuss theology and proselytize. If that sort of thing angers you, maybe skip out after the music and then catch up with folks when the coffee or potluck starts. Or maybe skip all of the above and just sign up for the volunteer activities at retirement homes, women's shelters, etc.

> I've never been to a church that required people to believe anything in order to engage in any particular way.

Communion at the Catholic Church. Or entering the Mormon church at all.

You're probably thinking of entering a Mormon Temple. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints distinguishes between churches where people meet every Sunday, and Temples where more important ceremonies are conducted (and which, incidentally, aren't open on Sunday).

Yeah, technically all Christian churches do not allow non-Christians to take communion, though it's on the honor system. However, I don't think an agnostic or atheist would miss a cracker and shot of juice.

I guess maybe wedding might be a niche concern. Some churches only marry believers or even members, but I bet most would consider it anyway. Only some sort of premarital class or counseling is typically required.

There are plenty of churches where you really don't have to believe in God or even feel pressured to. Particularly left leaning mainstream denominations like Episcopal or PCUSA seem to be a mix of believers and people who just like the community. Universalist Unitarianism is a little more blatant about that.

I have a bad opinion of churches as my abusive father was quite a fan of them, and would in fact diagnose my siblings as I as possessed by demons and use this as an excuse to slap the shit out of us, torment us until we cried, etc. None of his church friends gave a damn or lifted a finger to help us.

Wow. Sorry. That sort of thing angers me.

I won't presume to give you advice here, but for the other people reading, there are many churches who do work in this space, supporting shelters for victims of violent crimes, recovery groups, addiction recovery programs (substance abuse is often involved in domestic abuse), support groups for divorced people, fostering, adoption, and so on. There are places for one to do some good in this particular space.

As someone who was raised in a pretty religious household, I have to say that churches can, indeed, be pretty weird. Churches are like clubs. Whole lot of different clubs out there, but you really do need to be careful that you don't end up in one that's, well, let's just use the word, "unhealthy". There's a lot of "unhealthy"-ness out there in the religious community today.

Sure, but there's a lot of unhealthy-ness other places as well.

If you're not seeing a lot of peace, patience, kindness, or self-control, stay away.

But this comment, and its siblings, need to be careful about painting with too broad a brush. Religious communities are diverse. Again, there are billions of folks that are into church or weekly worship of some sort... there are too many of them for the entire category of activity to be inherently weird.

Just add to that. Humans have always lived in tribes. Tribes internally were mostly socialistic but between tribes it was free trade. You could say a man few thousand years ago was more certain of his future and less stressed about career then today. You knew your village goes to farm those lands, have neighbours who will feed you when you can't, gather for stories every evening, ... Life was physically hard but otherwise easy and simple

In a bad harvest year you were going to starve, in a wartime defeat you were going to be killed or sold into slavery, and in an epidemic you were going to die.

Futures were far from certain with those existential threats on the horizon.

You're romanticizing it. Very few primitive people had it easy. Life was hard and just staying alive was often complex. Especially when an epidemic came through, or your village was caught in the middle of a war.

Everything you've said is equally true of the modern world.

Unevenly, maybe.

But someone in a first world country isn't at serious risk of the next town over coming by and murdering everyone for their possessions. Or having fatal diarrhea.

You just moved goalposts.

> “But the reality is that most hikikomori are people who can’t get back into society after straying off the path at some point,” he says. “They have been forced into withdrawal. It isn’t that they’re shutting themselves away — it’s more like they’re being forced to shut themselves away.”

Articles need some narrative, and I get that it's also trying to put the spotlight on a different variant of a phenomenon.

But I feel it's going too strong on the opposite direction. There must be a sizeable number of Hikikomori who cut themselves willingly from traditional society because they feel there's nothing there for them. Others, like quoted, are forced into it.

I'm sure the reality of it is pretty mixed and varied, especially as the definition has been broaden to encompass people who don't get out of their homes out of pure necessity.

I feel like this has alot of parallels with the incel movement

I find it very disappointing that the definition of "incel" has now strayed incredibly from the actual literal abbreviation of "involuntary celibate", a rather clinical and descriptive term.

In my eyes, it now encompasses anti-feminist politics and overlaps a lot with "redpills". What happened?

Some people started looking for a cause of their “involuntary celibacy”, and chose the easy route - it can’t be me, so it must be you. Once the blame has been assigned in such a way, hatred is one easy step further.

What do you want them to do? Better themselves - Are they not already trying? Accept they were born unattractive - then what, suicide?

They could lower their standards and settle, as people have always done. It doesn't feel great but companionship can be found in people who are not "classically attractive", as much as it stings to not be an optimum mate

One of the big incel complaints is that the least attractive women don't want the least attractive men. If that is indeed true there is none for them to settle for.

Take a step outside into a busy shopping street. I think you will find you see a lot of couples, varying from average both towards attractive and unattractive. Maybe they are attractive to each other, I can't say. People are into wildly different things. The point is that it's not exactly difficult to find evidence of this complaint not being true.

Rather than a legitimate complaint, it reads more as an excuse.

THEY claim is that monogamy (which is just 80/20 rule in a nutshell) says that the 20% of "superior males" get the 80%. And the rest are just competing but THEY claim that even if you're under 5 you are basically fucked

> Are they not already trying?

If they're resorting to blaming and hating the opposite sex, then no, they are not trying to better themselves. You can't improve yourself if you're assigning the blame outside yourself.

> Accept they were born unattractive - then what

A lot of shitty cards are dealt in life. Being unattractive is just one of them. Yes, accept and move on.

Whether or not they are trying is immaterial. The form it takes is the problem here.

Accepting you were born in a way that doesn't conform to your ideal is I think natural for any person. I'd wager most of us aren't built to the spec of an idealised representation of ourselves. Part of growing up is accepting that this is the case. The step after that is getting on with your life - why would it be suicide?

In order to even start "bettering themselves", they would have to adopt a kind of growth mindset that involves rejecting ideas like that one is "born unattractive", and that being born unattractive merits suicide.

A side effect of that mindset is also increased attractiveness to both potential partners and other social contacts in general.

I recommend this video-essay: https://youtube.com/watch?v=fD2briZ6fB0

It's just a subculture don't take it too seriously

This. It's extremely common to project the blame on others as some sort of defense mechanism.

What happened was that the mainstream media learnt what 'incel' was.

It's not a movement, but the social cause is probably the same...

> The term was coined by psychiatrist Tamaki Saito in the late 1990s

{Citation needed.}

This seems unlikely given that "hikikomoru" is a compound verb which means to stay inside.

If it's nice weather but someone stays at home all day, the hikikomoru verb is used for that; it (still) doesn't have automatic connotations of it being a way of life.

The "komoru" part has various meanings (according to EDICT): "shut oneself in (e.g. one's room); to be confined in; to seclude oneself; to hide away; to stay inside (one's shell)" as well as "to be heavy with (e.g. smoke); to be stuffy; to be dense", plus others.

> The term was coined by psychiatrist Tamaki Saito in the late 1990s

I interpret the term (n. hikikomori) differently to the verb (hikikomoru) from which it is derived.

The term (hikikomori): individual instance of the social phenomenon of withdrawing from society and living in persistent isolation.

The verb (hikikomoru): used in reference to a specific (non-persistent) act of staying indoors, without necessarily carrying the broader sociological meaning. Edit: as another comment points out, just staying indoors for a weekend, etc.

The verb is used in normal daily conversation amongst us without the negative connotation ( as yet, given a general context ), as explained in a previous comment.

It's basically just staying home when you could do otherwise. A normal reply to "what did you do last Sunday ?", etc.

> from which it is derived.

"hikikomori" isn't a derivation, but a very basic inflection supported by all verbs, used all the time.

It is the usage that makes it work. Their child is a shut away is pretty clear similar usage not uncommon in America.

Is there a psychologist in America who is understood to have coined "shut in" or "shut away"?

I couldn't name the specific person, but someone did. The words "shut in" didn't always have that meaning; etymonline says it happened around 1904.

Without that you could be "shut in", but that just meant you were inside something with the door shut. It didn't have long-term or social implications.

According to https://medicalnote.jp/contents/150722-000005-CTDROY the term was coined as a translation for "Social withdrawal".

Why is there such a fascination with hikikomori on this site?

Because Japan Times says, "Oh, it's been days since we published an article on hikihomori" and publish another one. People who read Japan Times, then post it all over the place (not just HN). It gets voted up on HN for 2 reasons I think. First, there are a lot of people who use social media (like HN) as a crutch for dealing with their own mental health issues. Because they spend a lot of time trying to learn how to become healthy, they are interested in a lot of things like this (and it's not just hikikomori -- it's depression, and schizophrenia, etc, etc). Just look at all posts about various drugs and diet relating to mental health on HN.

The other reason is because some people like to bash Japan (and increasingly Korea it seems to me). I don't really like the word "racist" here because it really doesn't fit, I think. It's more culturist. Some people really hate the culture and think it's wrong, so they promote stories that show it in a bad light. I would say equally prevalent are people who unduly love the culture and promote stories that show it in a good light. There are tons of overly optimistic stories about Japan on HN.

Japan Times makes money from this second category (people who unduly hate Japanese culture and people who unduly love Japanese culture) and so post a ridiculous amount of trashy articles about these kinds of things. If you really want to understand Japanese culture well, I would advise avoiding it as much as possible. They are only in it to whip up emotion as far as I can tell.

> Some people really hate the culture and think it's wrong, so they promote stories that show it in a bad light.

I posted this story. I certainly don't hate my own home or culture. Rather I think one must have lived a very sheltered life in Japan not to have been affected by the hikikomori issue, by alcoholism, or both, which I'd argue are the two biggest problems today in Japanese society, bar none.

Japan Times criticism is valid, somewhat. It's certainly not top notch journalism, very few articles are these days. But I can't quite go and post a study of hikikomori in Japanese.

Not a single person I know in Japan has had no contact with, or not suffered themselves directly these issues. Any public conversation about them is good and necessary.

I never meant to imply that hikikomori was not an important issue. However, the questions was, why do articles on hikikomori show up on HN so frequently. HN is a forum about high tech, and startups, mostly centred around Silicon Valley. How does hikikomori relate? Why are we discussing the problems of Japan -- unrelated to high tech, unrelated to startups, unrelated to Silicon Valley -- on HN? Sure, you can imagine that it would show up once or twice, but the frequency it shows up is beyond what you would expect.

Why do you think people on HN want to talk about this phenomenon?

There is a lot of talk about mental issues in HN. Sometimes from a societal point of view, sometimes medical, etc. So it's part of that interest for people here, I suppose. There's a lot of talk about health, and nutrition too. HN is definitely not what I thought it was either.

Personally, I know a significant number of people ( not just in Japan ) who work from home, glued to a keyboard.

I do too on occasion -- as I assume is the case for many people on HN. But I must travel more than I like for work as well.

At any rate, these people always looking at a screen, they don't think of themselves as hikikomori. And mostly aren't, in fact they may have an uncle, or a son, or a niece, or next door neighbour, who really is, and makes life very, very difficult for people related to them, or living with them. So, not hikikomori, yet these work-from-home types can have close to zero interaction with the outside world other than a couple of holiday trips per year, and the occasional shopping weekend with wife / husband / partner.

I think some of them wake up one day and think they're going to end up like their neighbour. Others want to know how to get their son out of the room.

The thing is, hardly anyone talks in person to anyone else about it in so-called real life.

Maybe many in our line of work can be in situations that relate to the problem. Isolation in the age of hyperconnectivity is ironically very real.

I have a good friend who is hikikomori. I actually met him on the internet before I moved to Japan. I've never met him in person, despite trying many times to set it up. Hikikomori, in my experience, is very different than the isolation of working from home (something I also experience). It's obviously not a single medical condition. It's a result of dealing with some mental illness, but rather than living on the street or being institutionalised, you live at home because your family cares for you. It is uncommon in most places in the world because you simply can't live in your bedroom without leaving. In Japan it is possible. That's why it exists only in Japan and a few similar cultures.

I'm all for talking about the feeling of isolation and the frustration of working a long time without much social contact (story of my current life). However, I would not conflate that with hikikomori which is a much more serious social issue of how to deal with mental illness.

I am not conflating. I was answering why I think it may be of interest for HN readers.

Also, there are many types of hikikomori. Some have no family support or live with them.

I know one who lives in an internet cafe, alone, and has for years. The staff told me she avoids everyone as if they were toxic poison. Only comes out at night for bathroom trips / snacks and she will run back into the cubicle if anyone's in the hall when she comes out. It's been three years now. In a cubicle. Leaves the payments near the drink section in an envelope always at the same time of night. Doesn't even use the cubicle computer, she works out of her smartphone. ( Our company actually hired her for a while. ) Most employees do not even know what she looks like, I certainly don't. She's adamant that she wants to live like this.

The son of a friend has been in his room for the last ten years. Does nothing all day. Tried to kill himself several times. Their life is an absolute nightmare.

Etc. There's no one-size-fits-all, and in some cases I don't know if mental illness has anything to do with it.

Edit : Our next door neighbour, as far as I know, has not been out of his one room apartment in at least 8 years. He's old ( 80s ? ) and a couple of volunteers check on him once a week and bring him food, otherwise he'd be dead already. We tried to talk to him once and were told not to do so as he could turn violent, "he's a hikikomori"... It took a while to find volunteers to help him out that he would not attack, apparently. I mean, the list is awfully long. I could go on and on.

I don't know a huge amount about hikikomori other than what I've read here and in other media pieces about the topic. Plenty of those have pointed out that the phenomenon has been seen, and is becoming more common throughout the Western world. Just not attracting quite the same attention or a catchy name.

So I don't see it as Japan bashing just that it's more widely known and talked about in Japan. Not much different to early discussions of ADHD coming from the US. The Western cliche of an uber-nerd stuck in their parent's basement or their bedroom, but surrounded by technology seems to me the more offensive description of a similar result - yet not seen as US or UK bashing.

As for a specific HN angle, it seems reasonable to suppose that a phenomenon that has grown alongside technological growth, in a nation that for many years was at the forefront of that growth may be connected. In the same way my kids and friends are incredibly wary of making a simple phone call - almost taking any and every option in preference. Perhaps this is part of the "cost" of technology.

I'd speculate that there's a lot of people who can relate to it. It's easy to see the phenomenon as a hyperbole for the general self-alienation, hyper-individuality and social insecurity that is so common these days.

Maybe HN has an unexpectedly high hikikomori population? The type of person that can support himself financially without leaving the house is probably working remotely and a lot of remote work can be found in the tech sector.

Because people are looking for a societal scapegoat that enables them to ignore their untreated depression and reinforce their victim mentality.

> Feelings of failure and shame are common among hikikomori of all ages.

It sounds to me like Japan's hyper-competitive business culture has chewed these people up and spit them back out (even though for some this happened while still in school), and now an entire population segment has paralyzing depression. Maybe that aspect of the country's culture will be forced to change for the sake of the economy.