Women who pretend to be influencers” and “customers who don’t talk to each other”… Reasons why “cabarets are boring”.

Cabarets are so boring these days.

Inbound demand has been steady, and according to JNTO (Japan National Tourism Organization), the number of foreign visitors to Japan in October was approximately 3.9 million, a 17.6% increase over the same month last year. This is a new record high for October. While the number of foreign tourists is increasing and the city is bustling with activity, this does not seem to be the case for “nightclubs” on the other hand.

According to Tokyo Shoko Research, the number of bankruptcies of “bars, cabarets, and nightclubs” from January to August 2013 was 58, remaining at a high level. The reasons for this are said to be shrinking demand for eating out and entertainment due to Corona, inflation, high prices, and labor shortages. But there are other causes as well. Men who often go to cabarets often say that cabarets have become boring recently.

There are various explanations for the change in men’s attitudes toward cabarets and girls’ bars, including a “shift away from alcohol” and a “decline in demand for business entertainment. Among these, the most common opinion, especially among men in their 20s and 30s, is that it is “just a waste of money,” but that does not seem to be the only reason.

Mr. A, a man in his 30s , said, “It’s been a few years since the Corona fiasco ended. I’ ve gotten that much older, but the girls working in the stores are still young. ……” He says that the reason he can no longer enjoy himself as much as he would like is that he has begun to feel the difference in age.

He continued, “Around ’18, I was in my late 20s and could spend my money rather freely, and I used to hang out at girls bars and cabarets with my friends on the weekends, but I stopped going after Corona. The other day, I went to a cabaret club for the first time in a long time, and for some reason, the conversation wasn’t very lively. Is it because we are getting older and there is a generation gap between us and the girls who are around 20 years old …….

Girls are like, ‘What did you eat today? What type of work do you do?” and so on, starting with the canned questions like, ‘What do you do on your days off?’ …… When they run out of topics, they start talking about themselves, saying things like, “This is popular on TikTok,” or “I recently met someone famous on Instagram,” but it’s not interesting at all because it’s just a one-way conversation about something they don’t know. I don’t know what to talk about with a girl who is more than 10 years older than me, even if I want to talk to her,” said Mr. A. “They all look the same.

More and more cast members are disappointing when you meet them in real life

For a long time, young women were the norm in cabarets, and an age difference of 10 years or so would have been normal. It should have been a place where one could still have a pleasant conversation. It is possible that Mr. A, who is still young, is too shocked by the generation gap he suddenly felt, but how about a girl who only talks about herself one-sidedly?

In addition, Generation Z who are currently working as cast members have overly segmented interests, so there may indeed be a lot of gibberish in what they have to say. It is understandable that it is difficult for men to know what kind of topics they can talk about when they try to draw them out.

Mr. B, who is in his 40s, laments that he, like Mr. A, has trouble talking with girls, saying, ” Now that I’m older, I understand what my uncles used to say,” but there is something else that bothers him.

The girls all look the same. The number of beautiful and cute women in cabarets has increased dramatically compared to 10 years ago. But what can I say, they almost all look the same, and I feel like they all have plastic surgery. …… The technology of cosmetic surgery is improving, so if you spend enough money, you can get the “ideal” look. I am happy to have a drink with beautiful girls, but they all look the same, and it is not very interesting to talk to them. ……

While the aforementioned is the opinion of the men, it seems that the attitudes of the women working there are changing as well. We asked Mr. C, an employee of a cabaret club in Shinjuku.

At her store, a “remote system” is used in parallel with the regular business hours. This system allows viewers to order drinks and other alcoholic beverages from the female cast members who are broadcasting the videos in real time via a video delivery application, without having to go to the bar. In some cases, the viewer simply orders a drink from a cast member. The COVID-19 crisis has made it rapidly popular in nightclubs, and now many cabarets and clubs have introduced it as a new type of business.

The number of cast members who are pampered by thick customers who happen to order remotely is increasing, and more and more cast members begin to cut corners in face-to-face customer service, mistakenly thinking that they are “successful” and “profitable cabaret girls. Delivery is accomplished by telling one’s own story and picking up comments from customers, but when serving customers face to face, the lack of conversational skills is revealed. It’s a vicious cycle, and the more they focus on online distribution, the less interesting the cabaret girls become when they meet in person.

It’s not just a yearning for the glamorous world…

Mr. C also interviews cast members. Recently, college students and vocational school students have been coming to work here because of the high hourly wage.

In the last couple of years, the number has increased even more. Some of them want to be famous on SNS,” says one, “and they want to work here because they admire influencers such as Hibiki Ichijo and Karen Tenshi. Of course that is fine, but the basic premise is that these women became famous by entertaining customers. However, those who entered the store simply out of admiration do not know the behind-the-scenes efforts of successful cast members, so they are not enthusiastic about serving customers and making sales, and male customers are not easily retained.

The social networking sites are littered with posts by famous cabaret influencers on how they received many nominations. Even middle-class cabaret girls who are not successful can show only their “good parts” on the Internet. Many women yearn for such a staged and glamorous workplace.

However, because they have entered the club with the motive of wanting to become influencers and gather numbers on the Internet, they have lost sight of what they should be doing in a cabaret club, which is to entertain the customers in front of them.

From the male customers’ point of view, they want to have a good time because they are paying a lot of money to go there. For this reason, it is important how well the women who serve them talk to them, and if the cast members are all beautiful due to plastic surgery and the like, then the key point is how well they serve the customers.

On the other hand, on the women’s side, it seems that all they want to do is get buzzed about their social networking appeals or become influencers and get noticed by more people. I feel that such a big gap between the two has made cabarets boring.

FRIDAY Digital welcomes your information and tip-offs. Please send your information to the following information form or to the official X.

Information form: https://friday.kodansha.co.jp/tips
Official X: https://x.com/FRIDAY_twit