BrainWorms

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/25892638

“I was playing heroines, but in real life I wasn’t earning a living,” said Shibata, now 60. These days, she also works as a home organizer, helping people de-clutter. “Voice acting as a profession just doesn’t pay,” she said.

Even in a country where a culture of overwork permeates a wide range of businesses, the anime industry is notorious for the grueling hours that workers put in. Animators in their early 20s earn less than 2 million yen ($12,948) a year, according to industry data, compared with over 3 million yen for a person of a similar age living in Tokyo. That’s less than half of what US entry-level animators earn, websites like Glassdoor show. Creative workers also complain of late and uncertain payments.

Some, though, sense change is afoot. A working group for the United Nations Human Rights Council last year called out Japan’s anime industry for its poor treatment of workers, along with cases of sexual violence and harassment in the country’s entertainment business. In a May report, the group referred to “excessively long working hours” and low pay, as well as a disregard for creative workers’ intellectual property rights.

Acknowledging such worries, lawmakers passed a new law that took effect in November to boost protections for freelance workers. Late last month, regulatory officials at Japan’s Fair Trade Commission launched a study on labor practices within the anime industry and invited workers to submit complaints.

Once considered a geeky, so-called otaku obsession, anime is now considered mainstream. In 2020, when the pandemic brought Hollywood production to a halt, Demon Slayer: Mugen Train topped global box office sales at over $470 million. In Japan, around 400 anime titles are now produced for TV and theaters every year, attracting dedicated fans who go on to buy related merchandise. The genre’s popularity among global streaming audiences has also prompted a flurry of acquisitions. Sony, which bought anime streaming service Crunchyroll in 2021, became the largest shareholder of anime publisher Kadokawa Corp. in an alliance announced late last year. Movie producing and distributing company Toho Co. bought US-based anime distributor Gkids Inc. for an undisclosed amount to strengthen the Japanese firm’s US reach.

That later evolved into the current system in which studios work within budgets set by powerful committees of publishers, toymakers and businesses which finance the series and share royalties. Production companies outsource work to small anime studios and voice actors’ agencies, which in turn hire even smaller companies and freelancers. This helps companies work on multiple series at once and mitigate any potential losses. As a result, revenue is spread thinly, and it can take months for compensation to filter through to illustrators and voice actors.

Actors often wait six months or longer to get paid, according to Nobunari Neyoshi, who until last year ran a voice actor agency alongside his sound-production business for a decade. “Violations of subcontracting laws are rampant,” said 47-year-old Neyoshi, adding that sometimes actors don’t get paid at all. He closed his voice-acting business due to poor sales.

Workers are also often employed over the phone or via messaging apps without formal contracts, leaving it unclear how much, or even whether, they’ll get paid. “It’s common across the industry to be asked to start working on something even before any paperwork is done,” said Aina Sugisawa, a 24-year-old trainee at Tokyo-based studio TMS Entertainment Co., part of Sega Sammy Holdings Inc. and known for hit series like Detective Conan.

Unlike in Hollywood where a strike by screenwriters and performers brought movie and TV production to a halt in 2023, the majority of Japanese voice actors and illustrators don’t belong to labor unions. Numako, the former union official, says he’s always struggled to convince colleagues to join him.

The new law on freelancers forces companies to provide written contracts, including details on pay, to all workers. Businesses are now prohibited from demanding extra work without promising additional pay and are also required to pay workers within 60 days. The government is stepping up surveillance, and regulators are also inviting workers to blow the whistle on law-breaking activity.

One underlying problem, industry insiders say, has been the sheer number of people willing to endure poor conditions just to be involved in an art form they’ve loved since childhood. Breaking into the industry is still highly competitive; manga and anime illustrators regularly rank among the top dream professions of school children. Some blame themselves for their lack of financial success: there’s always a more senior job to aspire to. Key frame animators are responsible for drawing crucial images at the start and end of major scenes and earn more than those drawing sequences in between. With skills and experience, they can also move on to better-paid jobs including directors. But such senior roles are few. The field of voice acting can be even more competitive.

Shrinking demographics and technological innovation including AI are also seen bringing change — as well as an existential challenge. Japan Research Institute expects a labor shortage among anime illustrators, estimating their number to decline to roughly 5,600 by 2030 from around 6,200 in 2019. Production studios have already been turning to overseas labor, with Toei Animation sending 70% of its animation work to a branch in the Philippines, even though crucial processes remain in Japan. Many fear that AI will replace jobs, particularly at the entry level, turning away younger artists.

Real change, though, will require workers to act rather than expecting laws to protect them automatically, said Yasunari Yamada, a lawyer with expertise in freelance work. “Freelancers need to recognize that they’re business operators, and take action if they think something’s wrong,” he said.

Some are starting to speak up. Shibata, the voice actor, recently learned that a video game using her voice was reissued a few years ago without paying her royalties. After decades of work under her belt, including key roles in popular series like Saint Seiya, a story about mystical warriors, she complained, prompting the publisher to agree to a payment.

“People have just been clinging to whatever job they get, because if you say something negative you’re put out to pasture,” she said. “Everyone’s been putting up with it.”

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/18622890

The Observer has identified the operator of “GlomarResponder,” an overtly racist social media account, as ICE Assistant Chief Counsel James Rodden, based on an overwhelming number of biographical details matched through publicly available documents, other social media activity, and courtroom observation.

Since GlomarResponder was first created in 2012, the account has posted hateful, xenophobic, and pro-fascist content. “America is a White nation, founded by Whites. … Our country should favor us,” GlomarResponder wrote last month. “All blacks are foreign to my people, dumb fuck,” the account posted in September of last year. “Freedom of association hasn’t existed in this country since 1964 at the absolute latest,” GlomarResponder wrote four months prior, further clarifying the post was referring to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in a reply to a comment. “I’m not a commie, I’m a fascist,” GlomarResponder posted a couple weeks later. “Fascists solve communist problems. Get your insults right, retard.”

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/18513322

If you can't personally make it, it'd help if you spread the word to your friends and family.

While we advised against linking to mainstream social media in the monthly meta, I'm making an exception in this case since this movement is largely being self organized on the r/50501 subreddit.

To find your state, load all the comments until it stops, then use Ctrl + F and search for your state, then expand the comments for that to see what time and place the protest is in your area.

Stay safe, solarpunks. Bring first aid kits if you have them!

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/55924551

Argentine President Javier Milei is facing impeachment calls - and legal action accusing him of fraud - over his promotion of cryptocurrency on social media.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/25557014

Summary

Frustrated by Democratic leaders' failure to counter Donald Trump’s swift policy changes, grassroots liberals are pushing for a Tea Party-style insurgency within their party.

Anger is mounting over leadership’s lack of urgency, ineffective messaging, and perceived disconnect from voters.

Activists and strategists argue Democrats must shift from defending institutions to telling human-centered stories that resonate emotionally.

Some are calling for primary challenges and new leadership to counter Trump's influence. Reform efforts are already underway, as progressives seek a more aggressive and responsive Democratic Party.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/32737172

The company then used a legal loophole that stripped the affordability protections from the apartments. The maneuver appears to have been lucrative for the company, which bought the property for under $20 million and flipped it two years later for $63 million. Today, advertised rents there have gone up by around 50%.

Similar stories have been playing out across the country for years, as developers and real estate investors take advantage of an obscure section of the tax code known as the “qualified contract” provision. It allows owners of low-income rental properties that have received generous tax credits to raise rents far sooner than the law typically requires.

cross-posted from: https://ponder.cat/post/1620368

Reversing the rule could have disastrous implications for public health. Experts and advocates are pushing back.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/18447898

Transcript

cross-posted from: https://ponder.cat/post/1613522

House Democratic lawmakers reportedly used a closed-door meeting earlier this week to vent their frustrations with progressive advocacy groups that have been driving constituent calls and pressuring the party to act like a genuine opposition force in the face of the Trump administration's authoritarian assault on federal agencies and key programs.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/37638629

Turn on reader mode to view article

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/31912699

Taxpayers and charities helped develop Zolgensma. Then it debuted at a record price, ushering in a new class of wildly expensive drugs. Its story upends the widely held conception that high prices reflect huge industry investments in innovation.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.bestiver.se/post/228322

Comments

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/25439790

Protecting Law Enforcement Personnel. One of the Department of Justice's top priorities is protecting law enforcement at the federal, state, and local levels who protect us all. This includes aggressively investigating the all-too-common instances of violence against and obstruction of law enforcement, seeking the death penalty for those who perpetrate capital crimes against law enforcement, and backing and promoting the efforts of law enforcement when they are subjected to unfair criticism or attack.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/18282900

The Wikimedia Foundation says it will likely roll out features previously used to protect editors in authoritarian countries more widely.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/31837200

ICE wants to hire contractors to monitor social media for threats. Those who criticize the agency could be pulled into the dragnet.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/25829314

“GDP Could Take Massive Hit as a Result of Mass Deportations.” “Mass Deportations Could Leave Many Americans Without Jobs.” “Mass Deportations Could Spur Spike in Inflation.” “Mass Deportations Could Cost Nearly $1 Trillion.”

These are hypothetical headlines of the sort you run if you want to drive home the point that mass deportations would not only be a humanitarian outrage, but an economic disaster. Which, according to economists, they very much would be.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/4455668

spoiler

One detail about Elon Musk’s radical assault on the federal government that has struck a chord with many is the age of Musk’s associates.

Some are in the early 20s. One is 19, and goes by the name “Big Balls” on Twitter. Others have been reposting content from white nationalists. A 25-year old named Marko Elez apparently went too far by bragging on social media about being a racist who would never marry outside his ethnicity, and was forced to resign. (Vice President JD Vance wants the young man back on the job.)

They have been compared to the “whiz kids” of the Pentagon in the 1960s, the “best and the brightest” who brought us Vietnam. That’s not the right analogy. The whiz kids had degrees from the finest schools, and were mostly in their 30s and 40s. They were only young compared to the gray bureaucrats who typically presided over the Department of Defense.

What is happening now is best understood as an outburst of homegrown Maoism in America. The Cultural Revolution, announced by Chairman Mao in 1966, was led by cadres of enraged young people. They marched into universities and government offices and dragged out anyone suspected of bourgeois values or anti-revolutionary sentiments.

They didn’t care that removing those in charge of large institutions led to great suffering, even to the point of starvation. The chaos was the point. The old guard was so vile, such traitors to Mao and China, that extreme measures needed to be taken. Sound familiar?

They used dehumanizing language, exactly like Musk and Trump do when they describe USAID employees as “radical lunatics” working at a “criminal organization.”

The young people of China’s Cultural Revolution had what Musk’s shock troops have: the crystalline pure certainty of the young and ignorant. Speaking as someone who was a passionate libertarian at age 20, I’m familiar with the intoxicating power of knowing that you have figured out what so many older people don’t get. In my case, it was exactly the same revelation as the Tech Bros shutting down USAID and terrorizing the Treasury: that government was almost entirely incompetent and borderline evil.

When you get to the ripe old age of 30 or 35, most of the time you have seen enough of the complexity of the world that you lose that revolutionary fire. You still believe things, but you know the truth is nuanced, and that most humans, institutions and ideologies are an imperfect mix of good and bad.

You usually don’t have the misplaced confidence to walk into a government office you may not have known existed a week prior, and start rudely interrogating people as old as your parents who have spent their careers working at that agency. You might not endorse plans to fire hundreds of them, furlough the rest and stop all the agency’s projects.

In the Chinese Cultural Revolution, 18-year olds did all that. They savagely beat their targets until they confessed to imaginary thought crimes. We’re not there yet, but the desire to humiliate those older, with their expertise and degrees, is the same. The arrogance of the Tech Bros is the same as the young Maoists of 60 years ago.

In the language of Silicon Valley, their youth and inexperience isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. It makes them more powerful and loyal, not subject to the doubts and constraints that older, more experienced people would be.

Those shaking our constitutional order may have never studied James Madison, the Constitution, checks and balances or how our government is supposed to work. So when pundits warn that this could break the system of the Founders, to them, that sounds like success. Like their leader, Musk, they imagine that expertise in one or two areas gives them universal competence in all areas.

The young in China leading the violent purges in the 1960s knew they were purer than the people they were persecuting because they had been raised entirely under Communism. They knew Maoist philosophy, like the Tech Bros know coding and venture capital.

And they have one more unbeatable Muskian-Trumpian argument against the aged bureaucrats they are abusing: money. If these folks are actually competent, why aren’t they rich? The poorest member of Musk’s as-yet unvetted and largely unknown team probably made more at SpaceX or Tesla last year than the most senior bureaucrat.

There’s a word for someone who makes $110,000 a year out in Silicon Valley: loser.

As Musk assails our government with a new target seemingly every day, remember that the young cadre around him are not worrying about destroying institutions. No one does in a cultural revolution.

Jeremy D. Mayer is an associate professor of policy and government at George Mason University, and coauthor of “The Changing Political South.”