00:00:00 John Daub: The internet is one of the most beautiful things and yet so destructive, but it's very interesting. Something that's trending right now on Twitter as well as on YouTube all over the place is Araki Saori, known as Sao, who's an actress and model here. She's originally from Nagasaki. I'm learning a lot about her because the internet's going wild for her because of this photo and because of the Sydney Sweeney—I don't even know why it's a controversy—because of an ad that she did on jeans with American Eagle.

00:00:34 John Daub: We were starting to see this thing kind of snowball into the difference between beauty of Japanese and American—Sydney Sweeney versus Araki Saori. This post here on Twitter, all she did was post it about three days ago. We'll take a look at this in a second. I want to talk about this for a few minutes, but this one person tweeted this: "Which way Western men?" And I want to know your comments. You guys can tune in here. At the time that I took this picture, it was 16 million views. I think it's much more now. Which way Western men? Sydney Sweeney or Araki Saori? I don't know.

00:01:17 John Daub: And that's the question and it gets to a core on what beauty is in the two different countries. It's also a really great example of how far Japan has come with this. Because when I came here in 1998, I had no attraction to Japanese girls, let's just say. I didn't really understand Japanese beauty. I thought that they were like dolls. They were like little kids, girls. They didn't have an attractiveness. They didn't have curves. They were too pale. They dress differently. It didn't register with me that that was what attractive was.

00:01:57 John Daub: But the longer I lived here, the more I became a part of the culture, the more I could see the beauty and the pattern of beauty and thus I registered it a lot more. And here I am married to a really beautiful Japanese woman living in Tokyo. So I think my idea of what beauty is has changed quite a bit. This though, it's interesting because it's going so viral in the United States. How much America has been influenced by manga, anime, Japanese soft power, soft culture showing up now in comparison to the beauty.

00:02:27 John Daub: Twenty-five years ago, this never would have been an issue, although we wouldn't have this as well. So a lot of people are tweeting this one. This one got quite interesting here. Everybody—not everybody, but a lot of people—are comparing Saori to Sao-chan to Sydney Sweeney and because of the ad it's going super viral. Here's one going on right now within Japan about this viral trend. And all she did was just post this picture.

00:02:59 John Daub: Let's break this down here. When exactly did this happen? So I wanted to know the Twitter trend right now with Saori Araki. Saori Araki, known as Sao. There's a viral moment on July 24th, 2024 [?], which was last week. Saori Araki posted a photo of herself dressed in a sleek gray business suit holding a laptop with her cheeks puffed into a cute smile, and simply captioned it, "good morning." The image exploded across X drawing 40 million views and a hundred thousand likes within four days. Subsequent reports placed the view count even higher at 76 million views, cementing her as a global phenomenon overnight.

00:03:47 John Daub: Japanese salarywoman aesthetics. Many interpreted Araki's image as capturing the archetypal Japanese salarywoman or office lady—we would actually call them OL (office lady)—a related polished office worker, which quickly became a meme template. The image simplicity and warmth resonated widely. I agree. Meme culture goes wild. Some of the most popular responses included, "just wrap my car around a telephone pole" because he saw that image. Like people are influenced by manga and anime right now. So when they see something like this, makes an impression. And Saori's very much leaning into this.

00:04:28 John Daub: She was released from a J-pop idol group called Tokyo Girls Bravo recently, and now she's free to do whatever she wants. Probably the best timing in the entire world. What's funny is, do you see the image here? They flipped it. "What if Sydney Sweeney was an office lady" and Saori was having great genes. I think—it's interesting, isn't it? Kind of just comparing the two. It's a pretty interesting concept here.

00:05:02 John Daub: So for me, Sydney Sweeney is absolutely gorgeous actress, and I think Sao is very gorgeous as well. They're just two different ways to look at it. For Western men, it is an important question. When you look at both girls, which one would you pick? Pikaio writes in here, "both girls look okay." Yeah, but if you had to pick one, like which is your type?

00:05:26 John Daub: So after living in Japan for as long as I have, I would pick Sao over Sydney Sweeney because Sydney Sweeney, I don't know, just I've been here for a very long time. Most of the faces that I see every day are Japanese faces. How could you pick? Which is why this is such a fascinating meme right now on the differences between beauty and how to cover it. I'm into this meme because it's an interesting story.

00:06:01 John Daub: Why would somebody write that they almost rapped their car around a telephone pole when they saw this image and that got like five million views? Why would anybody write that? There's some weird people out there. But then if you say that you're missing the point. There's enough of those weird people out there that it makes a difference. So I am interested. I'm curious and I have a journalistic curiosity on just about everything. But when you see something like this, a dude who writes this, and it gets that kind of a response, that means there's something to this story.

00:06:44 John Daub: Jared, aloha. "People getting too sensitive. Yes, you buy what sells. Yes, who watches bowling compared to baseball? Yes, go woke, go broke." I couldn't have said it better myself, Jared. For Japan though, my friends here could just simply not understand what was going on in the West with Jaguar and the marketing. It was this bizarre few years where it's like, okay, and it seems like it's been reset and more power to everybody. Choose what you want. It's up to you, not me.

00:07:27 John Daub: Opinions don't matter, but "go woke, go broke," that's a concept. It's sort of really a thing. When you go into political, no matter what side you're on in the US, you're gonna upset 50% of the people and if you do that it's an awful Michelle rates [?]. "This topic is gross." I don't think so. It's honest. This is what it is.

00:08:02 John Daub: You have a Japanese wife, you're a lucky one, Michelle. You can come back on the next stream if you'd like to. I'm sorry you feel touchy about this topic, I get it, but I'm still gonna talk about it because I think it is very much relevant to the times that we live in and to people's impressions of Japan and the fact that she's going super viral right now. The world is an interesting place. I really don't understand what's so gross about it to be honest with you. Maybe I'm missing something. Leave your impressions in the comments below.

00:08:50 John Daub: "This topic is weird." I could disagree with what he said about this. "This livestream missed the mark for me." And that's totally fine. We have a right to agree to disagree. I think so too. But when enough people write me about this, it's a story. It's interesting and whatever way you come down on this, I think that's a really interesting question to ask Western men which way you go because that got a hundred million likes on it and it's really interesting.

00:09:25 John Daub: It's driving Twitter wild in Japan right now. So if you think this topic is gross then you're too sensitive. I agree with that too. I think though that everybody has a way to do things, everybody has what the line is. I think that line has been moving too far to an extreme to a point that it becomes a little bit ridiculous whereas my mind stopped in 1998 of what the US is. People's have evolved and if you are overly sensitive or you are sensitive, that's normal.

00:10:02 John Daub: Here's me trying to navigate this one here. I'm cool with that. You all know my background. I pick Sao over Sydney Sweeney because I probably just feel more comfortable because I live in Japan and my wife is Japanese. But the right answer is I would pick my wife. There you go. American Eagle is hitting hard. I saw the video of Sydney Sweeney at a gun range. You can't upset 50% of the country.

00:10:38 John Daub: To get back to the meme though, it's a beautiful thing when she's breaking out right now and I hope that she can be really successful with this. Take your 15 minutes of fame. Run with it, Sao. I'll tune in and see where this goes because it's fascinating to see this kind of—this kind of—this kind of. "John is being human today. This topic goes beyond East and West males." I think when we're seeing the reaction of this, we are kind of going and seeing the reaction. It's also very fascinating to me as a journalist.

00:11:15 John Daub: All right, guys. Leave the comments below. I'm probably going to edit this thing. This is, it did get a little weird. I have to be honest with you but let me know your thoughts below and have a great day. Normal content resumes tomorrow. It's a discussion. You got to be honest. It's a discussion.