Why Japan’s government created a state-mandated dating app

The interpersonal is political

In order to combat both this loneliness, and the low birth rate, the Japanese government has tried several tactics, such as support and subsidies for childbirth, children, and their families – whether you’re Japanese or not.

However, none are perhaps quite so intense, or so interpersonal, as Tokyo Futari Story, the dating app launched by the Japanese state last year.

“Futari” translates to “two people” – so I guess that’s anything other than the most conventional relationship out right away. The app is intended to promote marriage and boost the national birth rate.

However, signing up isn’t so simple as simply verifying your email, uploading a few photos and off you go to swipe to your heart’s content.

In order to have a credible profile on Tokyo Futari Story, the selection process includes a mandatory interview to verify individuals’ height, educational background and occupation.

At first this might seem like an exercise in blatant classicism in dating. Sorry, I mean, this is absolutely a class issue, especially if you take into account the initial $76.70 registration fee for two years of use.

 

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However, the reality is that with the corporate culture in Japan making it so that work is heavily prioritised, it’s more difficult to date someone (and to actually spend time with them to, erm, get to increasing that birth rate) if their free time is totally asynchronous with their partner’s.

Like most of the digital dating world seems to be, those in Japan are therefore looking not for someone different, but for someone who is already compatible with them.

What’s more, thanks to the high quantities of candidates for the application, the vetting process may incorporate AI technology to speed up the assessment process, taking us right back to square one when it comes to the AI influenced algorithmic assorting that many dating apps incorporate.

So while the app could potentially boost birth rates in Japan, it could also significantly decrease prospects for things like interracial or intercultural marriages or relationships.

Not just a capitalism problem then, but one of eugenics as well.

In this vein, Banseka Kayembe, at Naked Politics has hit upon one of the main problems of modern dating: it’s not to we don’t have “access to a  wide enough pool of people”, but that with the ease of avoidance if you don’t share a workplace, local areas or regular haunts, you’re unlikely to bump into someone you don’t want to see again.

This makes it easier, she writes, “to give up on people, ghost, or just generally behave poorly when you have no connections in common.” This might be why part of the state’s participation in this new dating app involves sponsoring events for singles or couples counselling.

The Online Dating Effect

It’s undeniable that the centralisation and dominance of applications within the dating scene on a global scale has soared in recent years, sparking hook ups, situationships, long term marriages, and everything in between.

However, in a recent study, it was suggested that people who meet on dating apps have less stable marriages or are less likely to stay together. This has been termed the “online dating effect.”

Mightn’t we consider it a bit strange, then, that the Japanese state is so invested (both figuratively and literally, having spent an estimated $1.28 million on launching the app),  in the intimate, personal lives of the country’s population for relationships – that are arguably a means to an end?

Does Tokyo Futari Story risk undermining women in particular’s ability to climb the corporate ladder if they wish to, or to live their lives independently without having their worth reduced to whether or not they produce children?

Or, mightn’t we consider the incorporation of elements like in person events and couples counselling to aid marriages as the state’s investment in the longevity of people’s relationships to one another, rather than their value in terms of their relationship to the state?

In other words: does Tokyo Futari Story prioritise relationships between people, or between people and the state?