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Rental Family
A or professional stand-in service provides clients with actor(s) who portray friends, family members, or coworkers for social events such as weddings, or to provide platonic companionship. The service was first offered in Japan during the early 1990s. History The earliest known rental family service was offered by Japan Efficiency Corporation (Nihon Kokasei Honbu) starting in the fall of 1991. Japan Efficiency, run by Satsuki Oiwa, was started in 1987 to train corporate employees, but after hearing complaints about unsatisfactory relationships, began to also offer professional actors for "soft service — reaching others with a sympathetic heart". By May 1992, Japan Efficiency had a roster of 21 clients, a waiting list of 84 more, and more than 400 applicants for professional stand-ins. Some of the rental family agencies felt the services offered were uniquely suited to aspects of Japanese culture such as saving face and social etiquette, but the practice has since spread to o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea in the south. The Japanese archipelago consists of four major islands—Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu—and List of islands of Japan, thousands of smaller islands, covering . Japan has a population of over 123 million as of 2025, making it the List of countries and dependencies by population, eleventh-most populous country. The capital of Japan and List of cities in Japan, its largest city is Tokyo; the Greater Tokyo Area is the List of largest cities, largest metropolitan area in the world, with more than 37 million inhabitants as of 2024. Japan is divided into 47 Prefectures of Japan, administrative prefectures and List of regions of Japan, eight traditional regions. About three-quarters of Geography of Japan, the countr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Five-Star Stranger
''Five-Star Stranger'' is a 2024 debut novel by Kat Tang, published by Scribner. Involving a high-rated man on a fictitious Rental Stranger app, the novel is based on real-life rental family services in Japan. Synopsis The novel follows an unnamed Japanese American male protagonist who has worked on the Rental Stranger app as a "rent-a-stranger" for a decade in New York City imitating various characters on behalf of his clients: boyfriends, in-laws, funeral mourners, and others. One of the man's longest pretend relationships is to Mari, a mother who hired him to be a pretend father to her daughter, Lily. When another client, Darlene, hires him to masquerade as an alcoholic brother and subsequently tries to find out more about his pretend family, however, the man's career is tested. Critical reception ''Huffington Post'' included the novel on a list of 8 books to read for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, stating that "Kat Tang's inventive debut novel perfectly capture ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Professional Mourning
Professional mourning or paid mourning is a type of public performance in which actors pretend to grieve for the recently deceased, with the goal of being indistinguishable from real mourners. As an occupation it originates from Egyptian, Chinese, Mediterranean and Near Eastern cultures. Professional mourners, also called wailers, moirologists, or mutes, are compensated to lament or deliver a eulogy and help comfort and entertain the grieving family, or to improve the public spectacle of the funeral. Mentioned in the Bible and other religious texts, the occupation is widely invoked and explored in literature, from the Ugaritic epics of early centuries BC to modern poetry. History Most of the people hired to perform the act of professional mourning were women. Men were deemed unfit due to expectations of being less emotional. Mourning was sometimes one of only a few paid occupations available to women. Mourners were also seen as a sign of wealth and social status; The more wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sex Work
Sex work is "the exchange of sexual services, performances, or products for material compensation. It includes activities of direct physical contact between buyers and sellers as well as indirect sexual stimulation". Sex work only refers to voluntary sexual transactions; thus, the term does not refer to human trafficking and other coerced or nonconsensual sexual transactions such as child prostitution. The transaction must take place between consenting adults of the legal age and mental capacity to consent and must take place without any methods of coercion, other than payment. The term emphasizes the labor and economic implications of this type of work. Furthermore, some prefer the use of the term because it grants more agency to the sellers of these services. Types In 2004, a Medline search and review of 681 "prostitution" articles was conducted in order to create a global typology of types of sex work using arbitrary categories. Twenty-five types of sex work were identified in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Girlfriend Experience
A girlfriend experience (GFE) is a commercial sex service. It ranges from a transactional sex relationship to a client paying a sex worker to pretend to be his girlfriend during the session. If the sex worker is male, the service is called a boyfriend experience. North America In the sex industry of the United States and Canada, the term ''GFE'' is used to describe a sexual encounter in which the sex worker and the client provide each other with reciprocal sexual pleasure and some degree of emotional intimacy. The girlfriend experience, often provided through an escort agency, is a popular service that involves more personal interaction than a traditional call girl offers. There is a focus on not just having sex, but also having more of a comprehensive experience. The details vary widely. The sex workers impart a sense of authenticity in order to make the experience more pleasurable for their customer, as well as to make the outcome more lucrative for themselves. According to s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ghost Followers
Ghost followers, also referred to as ghosts and ghost accounts or lurkers, are users on social media platforms who remain inactive or do not engage in activity. They register on platforms such as Twitter and Instagram. These users follow active members, but do not partake in liking, commenting, messaging, and posting. These accounts may be created by people or by social bots. Ghost follower scams Many ghost followers are accounts created by scammers who create fictional profiles and use them to target and scam others. Commercial services provide the ability to buy Instagram followers, most of which are ghosts. These individuals are paid to follow accounts but are not required to engage with them. This allows those seeking publicity to quickly increase their number of followers and appear to be popular, or " trending". For example, Rantic (formerly "SocialVEVO" and "Swenzy") was able to increase the number of Daily Dot's Twitter followers from 48,000 followers to 122,000 in only ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extra (acting)
A background actor or extra is a performer in a film, television show, stage, musical, opera, or ballet production who appears in a nonspeaking or nonsinging (silent) capacity, usually in the background (for example, in an audience or busy street scene). War films and epic films often employ background actors in large numbers: some films have featured hundreds or even thousands of paid background actors as cast members (hence the term "cast of thousands"). Likewise, grand opera can involve many background actors appearing in spectacular productions. On a film or TV set, background actors are usually referred to as "supporting artists", "junior artists", "atmosphere", "background talent", "background performers", "background artists", "background cast members", "talent", "background friends", or simply "background", while the term "extra" is rarely used and is often considered derogatory. In a stage production, background actors are commonly referred to as " supernumeraries". ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crowds On Demand
Crowds on Demand is an American publicity firm that provides clients with hired actors to pose as fans, paparazzi, security guards, unpaid protesters and professional paid protesters. The company operates in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, New York City, Washington, D.C., Iowa, and New Hampshire. The firm was founded in October 2012 by Adam Swart. Services The firm sells services that allow clients to simulate a celebrity lifestyle. Its "Celebrity Shopping Experience" is a trip through town in a luxury car, with cheering fans and paparazzi at every stop. The service was the subject of a ''Good Morning America'' piece in which a correspondent pretended to be the King of Liechtenstein while he went through a shopping mall with a paid entourage. The company also carries out publicity stunts for companies and public relations firms using actors. Swart claims that he has the most "crowd actors" in cities where real actors tend to try to make it—New York and L.A.—but has ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive with a respective county. The city is the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the United States by both population and urban area. New York is a global center of finance and commerce, culture, technology, entertainment and media, academics, and scientific output, the arts and fashion, and, as home to the headquarters of the United Nations, international diplomacy. With an estimated population in 2024 of 8,478,072 distributed over , the city is the most densely populated major city in the United States. New York City has more than double the population of Los Angeles, the nation's second-most populous city. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog (; né Stipetić; born 5 September 1942) is a German filmmaker, actor, opera director, and author. Regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema, his films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with unusual talents in obscure fields, or individuals in conflict with nature. His style involves avoiding storyboards, emphasizing improvisation, and placing his cast and crew into real situations mirroring those in the film they are working on. In 1961, when Herzog was 19, he started work on his first film Herakles (film), ''Herakles''. He has since produced, written, and directed over 60 films and documentaries such as ''Aguirre, the Wrath of God'' (1972); ''The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser'' (1974); ''Heart of Glass (film), Heart of Glass'' (1976); ''Stroszek'' (1977); ''Nosferatu the Vampyre'' (1979); ''Fitzcarraldo'' (1982); ''Cobra Verde'' (1987); ''Lessons of Darkness'' (1992); ''Little Dieter Needs to Fly'' (1997); ''My Best Fiend'' (1999); Inv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Face (sociological Concept)
In sociology, face refers to a class of behaviors and customs, associated with the morality, honor, and authority of an individual (or group of individuals), and their image within social groups. Face is linked to the dignity and prestige that a person enjoys in terms of their social relationships. This idea, with varying nuances, is observed in many societies and cultures, including Chinese, Arabic, Indonesian, Korean, Malaysian, Laotian, Indian, Japanese, Vietnamese, Filipino, Thai, Russian and other East Slavic cultures. Face has particularly complex dynamics and meanings within the context of Chinese culture, and its usage in the English language is borrowed from Chinese. Definitions Although Chinese writer Lin Yutang claimed "face cannot be translated or defined", these definitions have been created: * Face is an image of self delineated in terms of approved social attributes. * Face is the respectability and/or deference which a person can claim for thems ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Family Romance, LLC
''Family Romance, LLC'' is a 2019 Japanese-language American drama film written and directed by Werner Herzog. It stars Yuichi Ishii and Mahiro Tanimoto. The film had its world premiere in the Special Screenings section at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival on May 18, 2019. Plot Yuichi Ishii runs a rental family service called Family Romance, which serves as an agency to provide rental people to fill in as husbands, friends or other social roles. In doing so, they aim to fill the gaps in people’s lives helping them through challenging problems. At the film’s outset, Yuichi is fulfilling a contract where he pretends to be the father of 12-year-old Mahiro. Mahiro, who has no memories of her father, is shy and uncertain of Yuichi but slowly begins to welcome him into her life. As Yuichi gains her confidence, Mahiro’s mother asks for information about what her daughter is thinking and saying. As Yuichi grows closer to Mahiro, he begins to guard her secrets and advocate for more fre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
