Much like
All your base are belong to us, Yatta! has become a major
Internet meme: anyone who hasn't seen
Happatai's
music video is certainly missing out on a good laugh. But there's also a good deal of
social commentary going on in these lyrics. Consider:
Yatta! Yatta! We're doin' great in college!
Yatta! Yatta! Made president at our jobs!
Long as we've one leaf on, we're doin' fine!
Hey, we're lucky just 'cause we're alive!
In
Japan, if you graduate from a
rokudai school (which takes virtually no effort... getting in is where effort is needed), you're guaranteed an awesome job in a good
megacorporation or in the government, where you basically sit at a desk and goof off for 12 hours a day thanks to the wonders of
lifetime employment. Education is just a way to
earn your bullshit, not to learn.
For example, one of my friends, a pharmacy student here in Hogtown, completed her degree at a university in Osaka. Then, she came over here, and discovered, much to her dismay, that an American degree demands mastery of a million fields that a Japanese degree doesn't even touch on. Ever wonder why you see so many Asians in American graduate schools? Well, now you know. As they put it:
Japan's got crises, but tomorrow's wonderful
Even if somebody's mean to us, we just go to bed and
Snore! Snore! Snore! Snore! Pass! Pass! Pass! Pass!
(Ohayo!)
What's
Yatta! telling us? It's telling us that in
Japanese society, you can
fuck off and it doesn't matter. Let's hit
reset! Be
ichiban! The
bubble economy shall return!
GOOD MORNING! It doesn't work that way!
Irrational Exuberance gains its genius from the fact that it effectively translates the concepts in Yatta! to an American audience, who wouldn't get the Snore! Snore! Pass! Pass! part, but can appreciate the way that commercialism dumbs down their society. Hey, as long as we're happy, who cares if we're dancing in our skivvies?
Yatta! We did it! The only question is, what did we do?
a rambling poetic interpretation brought to you by sekicho - it's the economy, stupid