Is Cancel Culture the Consequence of an Infodemic?
Examining what really happened to Keigo Oyamada and how media reported before the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony.
Content warning: This article contains descriptions about school bullying, which might be disturbing or triggering for some readers.
As cancel culture movements seem to have swamped Western countries over the last decade or so, the wave of “wokeness” has recently hit Japan severely. It started with an announcement that Japanese musician Keigo Oyamada, better known by his stage name Cornelius, was appointed as the Tokyo Olympic Games opening ceremony main composer on July 14th, 2021. His appointment immediately sparked a backlash, and it took until July 19th, when Oyamada ended up leaving the opening ceremony creative team, to calm down. However, after his resignation, his bookings continued to be cancelled under the apparently lingering impact of the cancel culture. Oyamada has continued to be denounced for his youthful mistakes and he was framed as a cruel psychopath. Examining how both domestic and international media dealt with this issue, I found that multiple causes of this backlash had been prepared decades ago and this cancellation was the result of the tidal wave of information.
What’s behind this cancellation?
Keigo Oyamada, 52, is to be said one of the internationally renowned Japanese musicians. One of his albums, Sensurround + B-sides, a compilation DVD of music videos with an accompanying CD, was nominated for “Best Surround Sound Album” at the 2009 GRAMMY Awards and the vinyl reissue of his third album Fantasma in the US was awarded Best New Reissue by Pitchfork Media. Cornelius performed at many overseas music festivals, such as Glastonbury Festival (in 1999 and 2002), and Coachella (in 1999 and 2007).
Despite his dazzling achievement in the music industry, Oyamada certainly has an embarrassing past. It has been said that he, among other students, had bullied his classmates with disabilities during his childhood based on two magazines’ interviews, in which Oyamada spoke about his past actions against his schoolmates. The two magazines are ROCKING’ON JAPAN (ROJ), issued in January 1994, and Quick Japan (QJ), issued in August 1995. Oyamada first outlined his past bullying in the ROJ in 1994, when he was still a rising musician. In 1995, Oyamada accepted QJ’s request for a long interview to further elaborate on his previous ROJ’s interview. The aim of the QJ was to dig deeper into Oyamada’s bullying experience.
ROCKIN’ON JAPAN stood out as an unusual music magazine in the 1990s. Led by the editor-in-chief Yoichiro Yamazaki, the magazine earnestly featured many Shibuya-kei¹ musicians and bands, who were relatively outside the then mainstream, but beloved by discerning hipsters and crate-diggers, while ignoring popular bands. Yamazaki had continued to feature indie rock bands and musicians and helped them to take off.
In the January 1994 issue of ROJ, Oyamada appeared in its signature feature article, called 20,000-character interview. Interviewer and writer Yamazaki (who also served as editor-in-chief) asked Oyamada about his early life, school days and the awakening to his music preference to reveal the artist’s true face. This interview became the prologue of a series of cancellations in 2021. This issue of ROJ was published with the Oyamada’s interview with a sensational headline and his reflection, saying “(I) stripped a boy naked, bound him with rope, and forced him to masturbate. (I) also forced him to eat feces and performed a “backdrop” wrestling move on him.” (Please note that subjects are often omitted in Japanese language. The abovementioned quote also didn’t have any subjects originally, so that readers should have refrained from asserting that the subject of these actions was Oyamada. However, some bilingual influencers translated these sentences into English, simply by putting “I,” intentionally or unintentionally, to convey that the perpetrator was Oyamada himself.)
This part turned out that the writer had strung Oyamada’s stories together and embellished them, even though that wasn’t a case. Oyamada simply spoke about his elementary school memories with his friends and several unforgettable events he had witnessed, according to Oyamada’s official statement issued on September 17th, 2021. Up until then, however, his account of past bullying in the ROJ magazine has long been believed by some people and survived as a deplorable myth. Most fans got shocked to read the interview in the 1990s, while at the same time knowing the nature of the music magazine and not taking it too seriously. The point is that “disabled classmates” were never mentioned in the ROJ interview.
Following the controversial ROJ interview, the Quick Japan long interview was held in 1995 by then rookie writer Kiyoshi Murakami. Murakami worked on this feature article, entitled “Bullying Travelogue,” based on his half-baked idea that stories of both past bullies and their victims would help epitomize the structure of never-ceasing school bullying. (Murakami first intended to hold a face-to-face interview between a bully and his victims. Understandably, they all declined.)
Murakami continued to hold interviews with several public figures, such as American techno DJ Jeff Mills², but all of the outcomes ended up being immature, pointless pieces. Even though Murakami tried to cast an unconventional light on this serious social problem of bullying, his clumsy attempt failed. To be honest, when I first read this interview spanning 22 pages, its entire shallowness and crudeness made me feel uncomfortable. Some fans of Cornelius must have been hurt; however, I don’t think this featured story was fatal to Oyamada’s musical career. There was certainly a glimpse of his innocent personality at every corner of the interview. In addition, his talent continued to evolve and most of his fans never wavered in their admiration.
In the QJ interview, Oyamada narrated his past with nuanced expressions, sometimes getting carried away, laughing at his stupidity, and showing a sense of guilt. Despite his unguarded word choice, Oyamada seemed to reflect on what he did honestly with some hesitation and nostalgia. As he went to a private integrated elementary, junior, and senior high school, which adopted an early model of inclusive education, he led his school life surrounded by several physically and intellectually disabled classmates. The school policy ensured that every decision was up to students, and teachers should respect students’ autonomy. It means that some bullied students could be overlooked or not be intervened by teachers. Meanwhile bullies couldn’t be given any proper instructions. In such too unrestricted situations, how could elementary school boys interact with intellectually disabled peers in a perfect manner? The latter half of the interview also contains several episodes suggesting a strange friendship between Oyamada and one of the disabled boys when they were high school students. Oyamada said he had become a fan of the boy because he unexpectedly showed curious abilities, such as perfectly memorizing the register of students, and Oyamada seemingly tried to know more about him. There are several reasons why many readers hesitate to assert that Oyamada was a mere cruel bully.
I understand both interviews may sound offensive to bullying survivors, those who support the disabled, and parents/guardians having disabled children. I admit that what Oyamada did was unacceptable. If I faithfully translate his words in the QJ interview, he, with his peers, locked an intellectually disabled classmate in a cardboard box, taping it and pouring chalk inside. They also confined a boy in a locker and kicked it. This series of bullying was admitted by Oyamada in his latest statement issued in September 2021. According to the ROJ interview, Oyamada allegedly forced a boy to eat his own feces and masturbate. However, the QJ interview described that it was a senior rowdy student, not Oyamada, that had forced a boy to masturbate in front of other students. It also occurred during the night of a school excursion, not routinely. Oyamada didn’t participate in such deviant violence, even though he reflected that he ended up being one of the onlookers, feeling guilty. The episode of forcibly feeding feces was not mentioned in the QJ interview. These two interviews contradicted each other and Oyamada argued in his apology issued on July 16th, that he wasn’t allowed to check the manuscript of the ROJ interview, and many parts of the interview deviated from the truth. Two months later, Oyamada made clear which episode was true and which was not, and how much the media reports were exaggerated in both Shukan Bunshun weekly tabloid magazine and his official statement on his website.
Seeds of infodemic and proliferated internet memes
The battlefield has shifted to the Internet in the 21st century. In 2003, the thread on Oyamada’s bullying episode first appeared on an underground Japanese internet forum, known as 2channel, the progenitor of anonymous English-language website 4chan. Some malicious internet nerds started to extract several evil-sounding episodes from the two interviews, put them together, and fabricate a more gruesome story, describing that Oyamada himself forced a boy to disrobe, eat his own feces and rolled him up and made him masturbate in front of other students. This patchy story has become a meme mainly in 2channel. In June 2004, when a bullying victim junior high school girl committed suicide and the tragedy hit the headlines, many 2channel users associated it with Oyamada’s past. The copy and paste about Oyamada’s bullying history began circulating in 2channel, which caused the first flame war. It also affected the Cornelius fan website and his ex-wife and musician Takako Minekawa’s official website. The bulletin board systems in both websites were forced to close in the end.
In 2006, an anonymous blog, called Koritsu-muen-no Blog, also wrote up an article on Oyamada’s bullying, combining the ROJ and QJ episodes and editing out the passages which described Oyamada’s innocence and kindness in a skillful manner, in order to make Oyamada look more evil. This became another unknown ticking time bomb triggering the infodemic in July 2021.
Around 2006, the QJ episodes on Oyamada’s disabled classmates were added to the internet memes in 2channel. Soon, the most influential meme was perfected, with the description that Oyamada forced a disabled boy to disrobe, rolled him up and made him masturbate in front of other students, as well as forced him to eat his own feces and performed a “backdrop” wrestling move on him. Along with the anonymous blog’s post, countless internet memes have continued to proliferate, spread, and demonize Oyamada for the past two decades.
Every time his new music pieces are released, his bullying story is always brought up and the memes are posted on online news media. His past has continued to haunt him and threaten his artistic career. However, Oyamada didn’t make an apology officially nor take any appropriate measures to erase the memes before the Tokyo Olympic Games opening ceremony. This could be his failure, but in reality, tackling the internet memes seemed to be almost impossible. Oyamada has long been forced to keep silent.
Let’s sort out this chaotic saga: Oyamada bullied his classmates almost 40 years ago. He spoke about his experience in the two magazine interviews more than a quarter century ago. The exaggerated bullying stories have become the internet memes and have demonized Oyamada.
Sloppy reports by media giants and bilingual influencers
Fast forward to July 14th, 2021, where Oyamada was appointed as the main music composer for the Olympic Games opening ceremony, his past behaviors were re-surfaced. Many twitter users began posting his bullying history using the internet memes and raised questions about his appointment. A liberal influencer shared the anonymous blog with the comment that Oyamada boasted about his bullying against disabled classmates, which was retweeted over 15,000 times. The sensational bullying story sparked a huge backlash and outrage on twitter. On July 15th, two major Japanese media outlets, Mainichi Shimbun and Nikkan Sports tabloid paper, reported his past bullying and the ongoing social media outrage before others, saying that Oyamada “bragged” about his past bullying. Both newspaper articles contained the two most appalling acts of bullying. They described Oyamada himself forced a disabled boy to eat his own feces and to masturbate in front of other students, with his bullying lasting from elementary school to high school. Unlike these media outlets, the rest of the major news media, such as Asahi Shimbun, Yomiuri Shimbun, and The Nikkei, refrained from describing Oyamada’s past bullying in detail probably because it was difficult to factcheck what Oyamada really did more than 40 years ago.
After that, a Japanese TV personality and influencer Morley Robertson started tweeting in English about Oyamada’s past bullying, without reading the two original interviews. Robertson simply used the two newspaper articles from Mainichi and Nikkan Sports as the source of information, adopted sensational words, such as “routinely torture,” instead of bully, and embedded several exaggerations and false information while omitting nuanced details to draw international attention. Robertson claimed that the abusive musician was unbecoming to the international event and pressure from Western communities was necessary to step down Oyamada.
Several Japanese media outlets and journalists spread false information, without paying close attention to the contradiction between the ROJ and QJ interviews nor noticing the differences. Then, Major US and UK media giants also began reporting Oyamada’s appointment and past actions. Especially NBC, the Guardian, and the Telegraph have described what he did in detail, including the two harsh actions.
Surprisingly, NBC and the Guardian referred to ARAMA! JAPAN, an unprofessional blog for international fans of Japanese pop culture, as a source of information. It was shocking that such renowned media giants sourced information from the unreliable blog. The disclaimer of ARAMA! JAPAN explains that any articles on the website are not guaranteed to be true and are not meant to be taken as fact. ARAMA! JAPAN argues that it makes no guarantee as to the validity of any claims. I sent complaints to these media outlets and the blog site, however, none of them responded.
Oyamada made an apology on his website on July 16th, 2021 and expressed his intention to fulfill his responsibility at the opening ceremony. However, twitter activists sought to mete out justice to Oyamada using multiple hashtags, such as “#Calling for Keigo Oyamada’s resignation.” An online petition on Change.org demanding the removal of Oyamada from the opening ceremony creative team obtained over 30,000 signatures. In the end, Oyamada resigned on July 19th because the public outcry against Oyamada’s past actions intensified.
On July 23rd, four days after Oyamada’s resignation, the Daily Beast, a sensational US news media, reported a series of behind-the-scenes scandals of the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony. The article, written by Jake Adelstein, dubbed “Jake the Fake” and known for his signature hyperbole techniques, contained unacceptable lies. Adelstein described Oyamada as a criminal, using legal terms, such as sexual assault and attempted murder. Some liberal activists and influencers, who have also protested the Tokyo Olympics, have admired Adelstein’s cruel Japan-bashing and retweeted his posts to their followers.
Adelstein, born in Missouri, the US, moved to Japan at age 19. Adelstein quickly learned Japanese and transferred into Sophia University. After graduating, he joined Yomiuri Shimbun and worked for 12 years, where he has become obsessed with the world of yakuza (Japanese mafia). Adelstein used to contribute many media giants, such as CNN, USA Today, VICE, the Los Angeles Times, and the Japan Times. Now, Adelstein seems to be widely known as an infamous fake news writer in the Western media world. His ugliest article on Oyamada appears on the Japan Subculture Research Center website, which is Adelstein’s own news platform to spread the hidden side of Japan. His early life, obsession with yakuza, along with his weirdness are well described in this The New Yorker’s long article, “All Due Respect.”
Thanks to false information from major news media and efforts of social media influencers, Oyamada has fallen into disgrace. Many politically correct influencers celebrated Oyamada’s resignation and accelerated their protest against the Tokyo Olympic Games. Most fans of Cornelius understood that they had no choice but to accept the cancellation of his position as the Olympics opening ceremony main composer. However, is his past behavior really an inexcusable transgression? His career has continued to be destroyed and his other bookings, such as the upcoming album of METAFIVE, a band which he is a member of, and his participation in one of the major music festivals, Fuji Rock Festival held in August, were canceled. Japan’s public broadcaster, NHK’s Educational TV program, Design Ah!, has been suspended because the concept of the show is inextricably intertwined with Oyamada’s music. Neither the record company, the festival organizer, nor NHK gave a persuasive explanation for his cancellations. It is an excessive reaction to throw away such a talented, experienced musician without thinking of his enormous contribution to the pop music industry.
As of October 8th, none of the media outlets have amended their articles nor have backed down. None of the influencers apologized for spreading disinformation. Even though their reports have ruined Oyamada’s reputation and destroyed his career, no one seems to care about it. Since Oyamada is not a kind of musician who often performs on TV music programs, the general public probably didn’t know about his international fame, artistic achievement as well as his character. Then the Tokyo Olympics came around, this cancellation gave him a permanent image as an evil bully among many people. I think Oyamada has received excessive public shaming and social punishment, and finally got held accountable. Rather, Keigo Oyamada is a victim of this series of uncontrollable infodemic. Now, it is the turn of the media and journalists to be sincere.
To be continued….
I am planning to write about his confession on the Shunkan Bunshun tabloid magazine published on September 15th as well as his official statement issued on September 17th, how the major news media and journalists who had criticized Oyamada in July responded to Oyamada’s words.
[1] Shibuya-kei is a pop-subgenre that flourished in the 1990s in Japan. The name of the genre came from the Shibuya district, Tokyo, where many foreign-affiliated CD shops and vinyl stores were located, known as the coolest center of music, art and fashion at that time. To learn more about Shibuya-kei, see Wikipedia.
[2] Jeff Mills appeared on the 3rd episode of Quick Japan’s Bullying Travelogue issued in December 1995. This interview started with the writer’s groundless assumption that the Black techno DJ based in Detroit must have been bullied by hip-hop DJs. This preconceived idea stemmed from Murakami’s opinion that techno musicians were prone to be bullied in Japan. Accordingly, Murakami asked Mills if he had witnessed or experienced any bullying in the Detroit music scene again and again. Murakami’s questions puzzled Mills, of course. In the end, Mills explicitly denied Murakami’s assumption and stated that techno music was not for minorities but for everyone, and musical preferences had nothing to do with skin color.
