In September 2010, while Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs topped UK and U.S. charts, Japanese television and newspapers remained silent—because the band was independent.
This essay critiques Japan’s authority-driven mass media, which fills screens with shallow celebrities while ignoring world-changing art.
Meanwhile, the internet, with high-quality live performances streaming on YouTube, has already surpassed television and print in cultural relevance.
The conclusion is clear: true intelligence resides online, not in the opinions shaped by vapid mass media.

The Night the Internet Prevailed — How Authority-Bound Mass Media Lost Its Claim to Intelligence
September 20, 2010

This morning’s Nikkei Shimbun carried a core column by Hideo Tsuchiya, one of the paper’s senior columnists.
Unexpectedly, that piece has prompted me to write an important essay.
I had eaten a bit too much today, so I had thought to post it tomorrow instead.
But while listening on repeat to ♪Sprawl II♪ from Arcade Fire’s latest album The Suburbs (released August 2010), I decided I should know more about them—especially about their lead vocals.
Naturally, I assumed they must have grown up in the sprawling, disorderly suburbs that their music evokes.
But when I checked Wikipedia, I was astonished.
Their third album, The Suburbs, released in August 2010, topped both the UK album charts and the U.S. Billboard 200, selling 156,000 copies in its first week.
It was also the first album released by Merge Records to achieve the number one spot.
Yet here in Japan, our mass media and television—just as I have written before—did not report anything about this band, who have marched straight down the path of becoming champions of the early 21st century.
Needless to say, their performances never appear on screen.
The reason, I think, is that they are an indie band.
In politics as well as in the arts, our media can only deliver “official announcements from the General Headquarters of authority.”
Instead, what fills our screens day after day, morning to night, are shallow programs featuring vapid celebrities and foolish entertainers.
Behind them stand the major newspapers, which are the parent companies of these television stations.
There are few people with sharp antennas.
Most spend their days and nights at drinking parties in Roppongi with the rich, entertainers, and comedians, singing the joys of spring, oblivious to the fact that their institutions will soon be unsustainable.
But the internet is different.
Those fools who dismiss it as mere “nagging” cannot grasp that Japan’s most discerning people are already enjoying the superb video and sound of live concerts streamed on YouTube, courtesy of American Express.
In other words, the internet has already proven itself far ahead of the senile television networks and the editorial writers of the major newspapers.
There can be no question which side holds true intelligence.
Real intellect lies farthest from the shallow antics of pampered celebrities.
And of course, the opinions of those who spend their days staring at such fools on television can never contain real intelligence.