Yuka Kubo: Why Do Girls "Moru"?

"Even if you change your appearance, your inner self doesn't change. So why do Japanese girls try to make their eyes look so big?" I was once asked this question by a French woman working for a cosmetics manufacturer. She seemed to have the impression that Japanese girls prioritize "appearance" over their "inner self." Certainly, in the late 2000s, Japanese girls posted many photos of themselves with so-called "deka-me" (big eyes) to mobile blogs for feature phones, which were popular among them at the time. They call creating such an appearance that differs from reality "moru" (to amp up or embellish). I focused on this behavior of "moru" from a technical perspective and began interviewing the girls who were putting their efforts into it back then. When I asked, "Why do you 'moru'?" everyone was at a loss for an answer at first. When I tentatively asked, "Is it because you want to be popular with boys?" they gave ambiguous answers like, "It's not that it's not that, but it's not exactly that either." The answer they finally arrived at was unexpected: "To be myself." The faces of the "deka-me" girls looked identical to me. Living things have diversity, and there are individual differences in people's natural faces, but when they artificially "moru," they become uniform. However, in the end, everyone used words like "being myself" or "individuality," which are the opposite of that. Why?

To solve that mystery, I began observing the behavior of "deka-me" girls and made several discoveries. For example, the false eyelashes they wore were not used as-is from the package; they cut up multiple products and combined them to customize them to their own specifications. After learning these facts and looking at their faces again, individuality began to emerge from the "deka-me" looks that had previously seemed identical. In other words, among the girls creating "deka-me" looks, they could see each other's individuality from the start. They said it made them "happy" to refer to other people's photos posted on mobile blogs, make changes to the details, post the resulting photos back to the mobile blogs, and have those serve as a reference for others in turn. By sharing the "deka-me" template and expressing individuality in the details through visual communication where they referenced each other, girls who never met in real life were connecting virtually. When I asked, "Why do you seek connections on mobile blogs when you have friends at school?" they replied that while they get along with school friends, "it's not necessarily the case that people who truly suit me are there." I realized that they "moru" on the internet in pursuit of "someone who truly suits me" who is out there somewhere.

By the mid-2010s, "deka-me" photos were rarely seen. Girls switched from feature phones to smartphones, and the main destination for posting photos became Instagram. What was posted there frequently were so-called "Insta-bae" (Instagrammable) photos that created fantastical scenes by combining not just their own figures, but also clothes, accessories, and locations. Furthermore, since around 2020, many videos depicting a high-quality lifestyle at home during the COVID-19 pandemic have been posted to Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. Behind this change is a shift in the visual communication environment surrounding them. Cameras attached to feature phones were small and could only capture small subjects like faces or eyes in high definition, but cameras attached to smartphones became capable of capturing wide subjects like scenes in high definition. Furthermore, in recent years, video recording functions have improved through image processing using machine learning. Taking advantage of such technological innovations, the target of their "moru" has shifted from "eyes" to "scenes" to "lifestyles." Posts are accompanied by hashtags not only in Japanese but also in Korean, as they seek "someone who truly suits me" beyond school and even across national borders.

There, hiding one's face has increased. Their own figures are shown, but illustrations are synthesized over the face or the photo is cropped. When asked why, they replied that faces "don't serve as a reference" for others. There are individual differences in people's natural appearance, and no matter how much a face is artificially processed, that influence cannot be wiped away. When there are individual differences, it is difficult to apply other people's methods to oneself and difficult to use them as a reference. Therefore, to be a reference for others, they show each other appearances where individual differences have less impact, such as scenes and lifestyles. What they were showing each other in the "deka-me" photos was also not the face itself, but the eye makeup. On the other hand, faces, where individual differences are likely to have an impact, are made uniform or hidden by "moru." Their communication is certainly focused on "appearance," but it is not an "appearance that exists" naturally, but an "appearance that is created" artificially. And if that is made up of things that come from within, such as effort and creativity, could it not be said that they prioritize the "inner self" rather than "appearance"?