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Paper short abstract

This paper discusses market responses to increasing singlehood in Japan. The paper focuses critically on the marketing rhetoric of sharehouses and sorokatsu, which in both cases emphasizes themes of personal emancipation and self-realization.

Paper long abstract

This paper discusses market responses to increasing singlehood in Japan. The specific focusis on sorokatsu and sharehouses, two experiential commodities to emerge within the last two decades, both aimed primarily at single women. The paper focuses critically on the marketing rhetoric of sharehouses and sorokatsu, which in both cases emphasizes themes of personal emancipation and self-realization (though in slightly different ways). It asks: why this focus on individualism at this socio-cultural moment? To what extent are these rhetorics empowering, and to what extent are they exploitative? If these experiential commodities are, in fact, empowering, how accessible are they?