A little over a decade ago, I left my small town in suburban Michigan and performed as an idol in Japan. Considering it was quite a while ago and not something I am involved with much these days, I don’t want to be stuck in the past by mentioning it. But it does come up a fair amount of time, so I figure I can point people here when it does…

We’ve all met the guy who would’ve gone pro if he didn’t pull his ACL in 1992, or the former “gifted kid” who is now an adult who still feels the need to mention their SAT score. Nobody wants to be that guy. That guy doesn’t want to be that guy.

Being proud of your accomplishments and bragging about them is good. Being fixated on them, with a juvenile preoccupation with the past, isn’t.

With that said, allow me to talk about my past a bit…

TLDR;

I live in San Francisco and have worked in technology full-time for 5 years. 10 years ago, when I was 18, I left my small town in Michigan to perform as an idol in Akihabara and then later the wider Tokyo area.

OK, here’s the meat & potatoes of everything (i am a midwesterner so it, naturally, will come to meat and potatoes~) 

In 7th grade, I moved from a middle-class neighborhood in Detroit to a working-class White suburb and immediately committed social suicide. During lunch, some kids were talking about WWE, and I, with all the confidence of a kid who’d just discovered critical thinking, announced that professional wrestling was “~~fake and gay~~”

To my horror, I was ostracized immediately.

Looking back, I realize those kids understood something I didn’t: the point of show business is to put on a good show. The performance is the product. The kayfabe is the point.

This same principle would define my entire career as an idol in Japan, though I wouldn’t understand it until much later.

I wasn’t a weeaboo in the traditional sense. I was a weird kid with an insatiable appetite for information about other cultures. I’d check out books on Greek and Egyptian history from the library. I’d hit up the small Telugu-owned corner store to get bootleg Bollywood films. Japanese pop culture was just one interest among many, and my parents(bless them) thought I’d become an anthropologist.

I grew up in suburban Michigan during the death throes of the auto industry. At one point, the majority of Japanese speakers I knew were Gen X White and Black American women who’d learned the language at the industry’s peak. My public high school offered Japanese classes. I began taking private Japanese lessons when I was 11 years old.

Here’s the thing about non-native instruction: I could read and parse grammar, but I couldn’t really speak. And what’s the point of learning a language if you can’t communicate?

So at 15, I started livestreaming on Nico Nico Douga, a proto-Twitch platform for Japanese otaku subcultures and gaming. I was an absolute oddity. A Black American teenager singing and making corny jokes in broken Japanese, trying to practice in real-time in front of thousands of viewers.

In addition to livestreaming, I also initially went viral as a maid at a very short lived brick & mortar maid/anime cafe in Detroit’s hipster district when I was in high school. The cafe was covered on local news but was then shown on a Japanese variety show. This got me a lot of attention from the Japanese public and started an initial wave of people following me on Twitter, my blog etc.

(here’s fan art a man from Hokkaido created and sent me, roughly 13 years ago!)

I was never super mega ultra famous, but I got noticeable attention from these livestreams. When I later moved to Japan, people would stop me on the street in places like Harajuku would occasionally stop me and say they watched me on Nico Nico Douga!

At the time I got popular on NicoNico Douga, a character was released in an idol rhythm game with a suspiciously similar background! Her name is Jedah and she's a 17-year-old Black American girl interested in Japanese culture, with a birthday a few days from mine. 

I can’t prove it’s based on me, but come on.

World Otaku Mate, the NicoNico Douga channel I worked with, was affiliated with a indie music magazine. They saw the traction I got from my livestreams and began experimenting with talent management. I was offered representation as an idol in Japan.

At the time, I was still in high school, also performing at chiptune shows in Ann Arbor. I had no idea what I was doing.

I know that is the part that sounds like luck, but it wasn’t really. I’d been creating public, searchable content in Japanese for months. I’d built an audience. I’d demonstrated I could perform and connect with Japanese viewers. When someone was looking for talent that could bridge Japanese and Western audiences, I was findable.

So…January 1, 2015, I moved to Tokyo and started performing solo in Akihabara. For the first eight months, I was completely directionless. I had a few big TV appearances, some modeling gigs, but mostly floundering. My first manager quit the agency I was signed to. I was about to leave entirely.

Then I entered Miss iD, Kodansha’s idol competition, which I’ve always described as “if VICE magazine made an idol competition.”

Miss iD was experimental even by Japanese standards. It was essentially an accelerator for “idols and strange women with mainstream appeal potential.” The pitch was “for women who haven’t been given a chance by the rest of society,” though many competitors were exceptionally talented or attractive. They just had some odd trait that made them unmarketable by traditional standards.

I won a spot. I didn’t win the grand prix award as I would have liked, but I won a runner-up award in a contest that thousands of women competed in. The woman who won the Grand Prix award my year, Moeka Hoshi, has gone on to win an an Emmy for her work in the show Shogun!

At the time, this changed everything. Suddenly, I had structure, a team, visibility through a major publishing company, and a cohort of other weird, ambitious women navigating the same industry.

Later, I joined Chic Girls, described as an “Ariana Grande-inspired sexy/cute dance group,” where I performed 2-3 gigs per day while attending university full-time. I’d have dance class in Harajuku, a compulsory team lunch, then dash by cab to Nishi-Azabu for classes. It destroyed my immune system but established my career.

What Being an Idol Means

Before going further, let me clarify what an idol is, because Korean idols have warped most Western perceptions.

Japanese idols aren’t polished products. They’re young performers. Idols are singers, models, and actors, known for their personalities. Fans follow them to watch their journey, not to see perfection. Think American Idol contestants or influencers before influencers existed. The appeal isn’t a finished product; it’s watching someone try really hard to improve each performance.

The industry exploded in the 1980s “golden age” with commercial tie-ins to anime and products. The idol was a commodity selling a commodity. By the 2000s, the internet disrupted everything. Women like Momoi Halko started self-producing with personal blogs and recording equipment. When I started in the early 2010s, there were tens of thousands of active idol groups in Japan, many started by small companies to promote products.

(this is a screenshot from my profile on the Showroom app we were promoting in the contest)

Much of my work was promoting fashion or technology products. In Miss iD, we were essentially meant to promote SHOWROOM, a chat app similar to Twitch where idols interact with fans. I also participated in a gameshow to promote the newly released Line LIVE streaming feature(LINE is basically like WhatsApp for Asia).

The industry is supported primarily by adult male fans who either live vicariously through idols or have pseudo-relationships with them. These fans are typically harmless, though there have been aggressive incidents.

(modelling for jenny fax / mikiosakabe in Tokyo Fashion Week)

The Rules (AKA The Kayfabe)

Remember that WWE lesson from 7th grade? The Japanese idol industry is largely kayfabe that fans happily pay for.

Western idol fans, like my 7th-grade classmates, get quite angry when I say this, but most “rules” are performative. They’re about maintaining the illusion for paying customers. Here are the actual rules I encountered:

The “Love Ban Law” Idols supposedly can’t date. This maintains an air of availability for adult male fans buying photos and handshake tickets.

In reality? After management companies tried suing women for falling in love (viewing it as depreciating their investment in training), a Tokyo court ruled they legally cannot restrict dating in contracts. Now they work around it by claiming they “control your image.”

Which somehow feels worse.

No Photos With Men: Even if a random guy asks for a selfie or your cousin visits, you can’t take photos with men. Someone could post it online, start rumors, and alienate fans, which stops cash flow.

No DMs on Social Media: Here’s what Western fans don’t know: many idol fans aren’t shy 30-year-old salarymen. They’re antisocial guys in their early-to-mid twenties who try to date the idols.

Fans will message girls, form bonds, lavish them with gifts, then screenshot everything and post it online to defame them when things go south. To avoid this, management doesn’t allow DMs with fans and may even ask for your social media passwords.

No Tweeting Between 11 PM - 8 AM: Yes, this is real. After leaving my first company, another agency told me this would be required. They said a woman’s reputation could be tarnished if she were seen as “the type of lady who tweets at midnight.”

Lulz.

No Drinking/Smoking: Standard image control, even if you’re of legal age. They also told us this was to keep us in good health, which is probably true tbh.

No Working in the Adult Industry “Adult work” girls’ bars, hostess clubs is ubiquitous in Tokyo, especially among the type of girls interested in idol groups (subculture kids, wayward women). Most companies have a blanket ban.

This varies by group. By the time I was in Chic Girls, management basically said “don’t be reckless” meaning don’t send nudes with your face in them or go on IG live with a guy in the background. Many members worked at high-end hostess bars. Nobody cared.

Hardest Parts

Workload Attending university full-time while performing 2-3 gigs per day destroyed me. Some days: dance class all morning in Harajuku, compulsory lunch, then sprinting to catch a cab to Nishi-Azabu for university. My immune system collapsed. I trained myself to be busy every waking moment.

When I moved to England later, I had no idea what to do with my free time.

Bullying: This wasn’t an idol thing or a Japanese thing; it is a “social group of young people” thing. When I joined a group, I got bullied. This didn’t happen performing solo in Akihabara… those girls were curious and kind. Thankfully, one of the group members spoke up about the bullying, and the perpetrator was ousted.

Most idols, even famous ones, are genuinely kind people. But group dynamics are group dynamics everywhere.

The Best Parts

A few years ago, I went through my Facebook message requests. My inbox was filled with Japanese women sending words of support and love.

I remember riding my bike around Jujo, the small provincial part of Tokyo where I initially lived. Occasionally, school children or elderly people who’d seen me on TV would yell “Ganbatte Aminyan!”

In my youth, I pursued fame because I wanted to know I was loved. I realize now this was probably not the best way to acquire love. I’ve done a lot of work since then and grown considerably.

The idol industry is deeply tied to technology and the Japanese economy. The 1980s golden age produced countless acts with commercial tie-ins. The 2000s internet era enabled self-production. By the 2010s, social media meant tens of thousands of groups could exist simultaneously.

I entered at the perfect moment: when being a bilingual, internet-native performer with an American audience was actually valuable to Japanese companies trying to expand internationally.

The kayfabe was always the point. The rules, the availability, the “no dating” myth, it’s all performance. Fans know this on some level. They’re paying for the illusion, the parasocial relationship, the feeling of supporting someone on their journey.

I learned Japanese through unglamorous years of flashcards and grammar drills. I practiced by humiliating myself in front of thousands of strangers online. I got discovered by being discoverable, creating consistent, public content that demonstrated my abilities. I succeeded by entering competitions, joining groups, and working myself into exhaustion.

None of it was all that romantic. All of it was real work wrapped in layers of performance.

Thanks for reading!

This certainly wasn’t everything, and I’ve debated with myself about how much I actually want to discuss this. My life has largely moved on from this but I think I may occasionally write more thoughts on it. Bye for now.

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A risography workshop

Baking a burnt basque cheesecake

Sour Cherry Comix monthly mystery box

Palo Alto philosophy meet ups

Reading the book I put off for ten years

Sephora on pay day

saying “No”

Cleaning my room

closing out Asana tickets

Microwaved risotto

tri-annual pap smear

texting my home girl

Buying index funds

Tuesday night yoga class

Forgiveness

organizing my google drive

full brazilian wax

Deep sleep with a weighted blanket

CodeAcademy

dentist visit

saying “Yes”

substituting cheesy milky boba with black tea boba because cheese hurts my tummy

listening to Erykah badu

bed rotting

solo travel to Portland

Momoi Halko!

appreciating the present

A few weeks ago I walked to a doctor’s appointment around Powell St. in downtown San Francisco — with airpods in. The noise tends to be overwhelming and I enjoy disengaging with reality by listening to podcasts. On days I’m feeling enlightened, it’s an e-book about AI alignment or a self-help Youtuber. When I’m feeling trashy it’s celebrity gossip of the week.

My charging pod fell out of my pocket as I walked to my appointment. My iPhone has tracked it to somewhere around Hyde or Eddy street. I’ve accepted that it’s gone. This would have been a disaster to me months ago. Recently, I’ve done a lot of therapy on disassociation and mindfulness. So I challenged myself to go without them. It almost feels like a blessing in disguise.

I wish I would have had the willpower to do this sooner! What I’ve gained in the time from this is far richer than any ebook or podcast. I’m able to engage with with the present.

As days turned into weeks without constant input, I’m seeing how much of life's rich tapestry I had been missing. I can meditate painlessly. I’ve never been able to meditate for longer than a minute or two. It’s amazing.

My sleep has gotten much better without bedside distractions. Instead of distracting myself from reality, I embrace it. I savor my morning coffee without distractions. I say “Hello” and look my neighbors in the eye when I go for walks. The material world is so beautiful. I’m kicking myself for not appreciating it earlier.

I’m sure I’ll buy another AirPod charger. It’s a necessity for flights, coworking in public spaces, listening to music…

I’m excited for my new, mindful life! 🌱

Previously, I had attempted this several times on Figma, but I lost motivation due to the overwhelming number of design choices. On a whim, I decided to try using Canva instead.

The first thing I did was come up with a name for a typical moe-kei visual novel from the early 2000s, also known as the "y2k" era. Names like Milk, Cream, Ribbon, and Berry popped into my head. Eventually, I settled on "Milk Maid," stylized in Hiragana. Canva surprised me with its wide range of Japanese fonts, and I easily found one that matched the style I was going for.

Next, I decided to use ImgnAI, an anime AI tool, to generate some results that aligned with my vision. It took a few attempts and different prompts, but I eventually obtained some images that I was pleased with. The tool also provided good alternatives to what I ultimately chose for my project.

My final design for Milk Maid is below! I went with a mid-2000s aesthetic for both the anime style that I selected as well as the decor of the website.

Initially I felt limited by Canva. This is a common experience in design — some tools that are really beginner friendly can leave you feeling restricted in choice. The inverse of that is Figma, which I consider myself to be pretty proficient at, feeling too mechanical at times. I later realized that Canva had more capabilities that I had not initially seen. I would probably use Canva again but it would be cool to try this over in Figma to see what I could come up with.

Next, I re-imagined this style of UI for modern times. I know that game websites look quite different now (than what I designed) but my goal was to create an “updated” version of the style of homepage I made for MilkMaid. This is “Cyber Angel!” The character designs are again from IMGNAi but the landscape of the “neo-tokyo” is from a google search. I tried a fresher font style, an updated anime style and notably I used a gradient in the background of the homepage. I see gradients everywhere in the West now. My experience is that Japan is leaning more into the neon-Asian maximalist style for some design but I also saw some gradients there earlier this year.

Overall, this was a fun distraction and something I wanted to work on for a while. In the future, I’d like to do an in depth case study on Japanese UI in general—which is interesting to say the very least. Please let me know what you think. Which game would you like to play more?

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Whether your locus of control scores higher on the internal or external rating differs based on how much agency you believe you directly have for your life.

Women consistently score higher on having a high external locus on control. It makes sense, nature is thrusted upon you without much choice of your own. Even if you are a transgender woman who experiences dysphoria, I could imagine it would feel like nature thrusted itself on to you, too. Up until the 1980s in America, perhaps even the 1990s, women were bounded by the restrictions of society/their families.

In comparison: Men seek to thrust themselves on to nature.

There’s also a few studies that suggest Black Americans have a high external locus of control — I would chalk this up to religion, generational trauma and a legacy of systemic oppression. Again, if you only got agency in the legal realm a generation or so ago it’s pretty hard to realize the power you now have.

What’s important in all of this is realizing that in spite of whatever issues outside of our control, we have some control over our lives. Perhaps quite more than we believe we do. I recognize that this concept is difficult to come to terms with. It may even seem disconnected. Yet - We should shift our framework of recognizing our own power and agency rather than helplessness as the compassionate perspective.

So what I’m struggling with now is my own internal locus of control. Being a victim is gratifying in the short term. It’s easy. It’s simple to resign yourself to the traumas of the past or some oppressive “other” than to take the uncomfortable consistent steps it requires to be where you need to be. In the long term, it’s devastating.

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In San Francisco, it’s hard to not feel like a total loser. I remember when I first moved here and modestly mentioned my past in Tokyo and London. I was one of many, in my techie dorm had did stint in Tokyo. Nobody was impressed, delightful. This was a stark difference to visits to my small town in Michigan where I was treated like a modern day Marco Polo.

I like San Francisco because it humbles me and challenges me to do bigger and greater than anywhere else. I love having my mediocrity pointed out to me if only to be the impetus for me to strive for more.

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March 2020, my world was turned upside down. Like many times in life, things had gone less than ideal.

The year began with an air of excitement. Graduate university, move to San Francisco and snag a full time job. In March, I found myself on an aunt’s couch in a Southern Californian suburb with less than two days to pack my stuff up from London. Although I was happy not to be sleeping in my brother’s race car bed in Michigan, disappointed can’t describe how low I felt.

With California’s emergency order enacted I also had no distractions. It was me, my thoughts and I…

This led me to a few realizations:

I needed to address trauma

My life was not where I wanted it to be.

I was flying by the seat of my pants.

I could not keep ignoring this reality.

Now, three years later and my life has dramatically improved. I’ve gotten somatic-based therapy, gained a stronger sense of self, created community, become conscious of my needs and moved to San Francisco.

Here's a few things that helped:

Reckon with the past.

A while back a different auntie of mine in her fifties languished that if only she had her looks or body of her 20s and the wisdom that she had now, she could "snag a millionaire husband”. This is something commonly repeated by women as society (sadly) puts an emphasis of our youth as our greatest assets. The truth is — she won’t ever be in her 20s again. If she wanted to, she could snag a millionaire husband. It probably won’t be easy, or even fun. But it is still possible. 

Like my aunt, I’ve thought this too: “If only I was 19 with the knowledge I know now" It would've saved me a few bad relationships, bad decisions. But I'm happy for my mistakes, I forgive myself for the ways I hurt myself when I didn't know better. 

The point is - why hope to be 19 again? You won’t ever be, no matter how much you wish for it or face creams you buy. Why hope to be the star quarterback or for a job you no longer have? It’s just torturing yourself. As soon as we accept that we cannot change the past nor should we retreat to it, we're free from its tyranny.

The past is the past. Ruminating is fine, but you need to realize that you have the agency to change your life as it is *right now*. The longer you allow yourself to grief for your past, the more time you waste in the present.

If you wish you would've went to culinary school twenty years ago, why not do it *right now*? Sure, it may not be the same journey it would’ve been if you had done it two decades ago but so what. Leave the past in the past and go for what you want, now.

Forgiveness

Once you are able to live in the present, this should be easier.

The common sentiment is: forgive others who hurt you.  I'm sure there's some truth to this as a process of relinquishing anger, yada yada. To get unstuck, I think it’s most important that you offer forgiveness for yourself. Life always has plenty of regret. Forgive yourself for what you didn’t know or the person you weren’t before. 

Be Like Water

The only thing constant is change — Life will never go exactly how you plan and having the tenacity to change alongside it will be of benefit to you. Be flexible and change along with the grooves of life. This will help you go further along.

Be Real

It’s helped me the most to be as realistic as I can about my situation. Sure, this can bring up dark feelings at times. Especially if your life is completely different than how you’d like it to be. But it’s an integral step to planning out your next steps. Let’s say you live at home with your parents in the Midwest, work part time, but your dream is to live in Manhattan and work in finance.

Leaving home may be out of the question for you but you can’t let the fear and challenge keep you from what you’d like to accomplish. If you’re real about your situation, you’d realize that it would take a lot of money in savings, planning and professional connections to pull this off. OK a lot of work but not impossible. Once you assess your current situation it’s a lot easier to think smaller — visit New York for a weekend trip or call up an old highschool buddy who did something similar(moved to a big city). You could start doing online training for finance stuff or even take a job locally to give you the skills you’d need. Obviously, for someone in a situation like this they’d need to put in a lot of time & effort.

Yet like with most goals whether they’re to leave your home town or something a lot easier, it’s important to break your goals down so they don’t seem so intimidating

We’ve all been stuck before. But realize that your current situation in life does not have to be where you stay.

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A few years ago, my therapist told me that clients don’t come to her when their life is in shambles. Besides people in grief, the majority of her clients had relatively peaceful lives. Yet they sought therapy.

When life is in a chaotic state it’s easy to emotionally cruise through. At least for me it is. Bills need to be paid. Someone needs my help. Just my luck, there’s no need to think about my problems.

Early 2021 my life had the first signs of stability since leaving home. I lived as a stay at home girlfriend, had plenty of time to create content that I made money from and had a great support system. Yet, I couldn’t help but shake a feeling of overwhelming dread. Woke up at 1pm everyday. Never left the house. Felt terrible.

Two years later and my life is even better than it was in 2021. I’ve done a lot of therapy and have made strides to begin a professional career. Something that I’m proud of is my Youtube channel and this blog. Although I’d like to work harder at those things. Best of all—I’m out of bed and teaching myself new things by 9:30 each morning. Most days, quite earlier.

Roughly two weeks ago, my life has gotten a lot better as well. I won’t get into the details but I have a lot more time to work on personal projects of mine. Not to mention, I’m going on a month long vacation to Japan!

Objectively, I understand that this life of mine is very close to perfection. Yet this unshakeable dread has come again. I just can’t help but not trust myself to not sabotage. Opportunities. Relationships. my wellbeing.

I don’t have a propensity for self sabotage, I just hold myself to an incredibly high standard and when I don’t meet my goals it’s easy to recluse.

I sabotage in the form of self doubt. Emotional avoidance. Dimming my light.

I am loved and I blessing of feeling love. My health is dandy and I live in the most beautiful city in the world. I have a great life and I appreciate every person that makes it special for me. I feel optimistic about my future, but just wanted to share this today. Does anyone else sabotage(yourself)?

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As I write this I’m sick. Well, recovering from sick. This seasonal head cold of mine has brought up tucked away memories.

As a child, I loved it when I was sick. Every winter I came ill with a bad bout of pneumonia and would stay in the hospital. My parents didn’t argue. The nurses were nice. The hospital felt peaceful. Best of all was that I was truly helpless, in a way that nobody could ignore. A sort of vulnerability that couldn’t be looked over. Not by myself or my caregivers. When school got too boring, I came down with illness. It was the same when bullying got too much to handle. It was easier to isolate myself away from the world under the guise of illness. It was the only acceptable state of vulnerability. It’s only recently have I been able to tie in emotional discomfort with physical illness.

This time as I’m sick I realize that it also comes at a time where I’m starting to learn a lot of new things. I’m entering a great new chapter of my life—am I really sick? Or am I uncomfortable? Maybe it’s just easier to hide under warm blankets & watch cartoons than face the big bad world.

I took time to rest this weekend. When I felt well enough, I decided to keep progressing in the projects I’m working on. Rested again.

Life is about balance after all.

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New Years are weird. This time is full of optimism about what the next twelve months can bring. Yet I’ve always felt a sense of self flagellation and guilt. So, I’m carving out some time to show gratitude about my personal achievements this past year and I suggest you do the same too. Thank you to everyone who helped make 2022 great!

Mental

Outside of being an incredibly strange(autistic) child I also dealt with many traumas in my early life. My parents got divorced when I was still in preschool. My Mom began to lose her hearing abilities. I was in a terrible car wreck that left my mother in the hospital for over a month. Bullying was frequent from both my step-mom and schoolmates. I have some predisposition for mental illness. As a young adult, I did sex work far too quickly without considering the long term mental/physical/social ramifications of it all. And, for about fifteen minutes, I had a minor form of fame as a pop idol. All of these things can mess you up.

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