Just wanted to give you an update about the post titles Photos of a girl pretending to eat her cat.

Her name is Nakagawa Shoko. She's a Japanese "Talent" who is regularly on TV on variety shows and advertising. I caught a link to those pictures last week and then ended up seeing her on TV just this weekend. Talent's are women (and sometimes men) who don't have any particular skill or talent, but are on TV because they are attractive. During the video segments on variety shows you see their reactions in an inset screen.

She's famous as a prolific blogger in Japan. She updates about 5 or 6 times daily, mostly from her phone I think, with pictures of her face with stuff written on her forehead and also with pictures of cats (hers and maybe other people's, I'm not really sure). You can check her blog out here:

Reader comment:

Kyle says:

There's an interesting video on YouTube (in Japanese) about Otaku culture, where Shoko Nakagawa discusses the reclamation of the word "otaku" ("nerd") by the nerdy crowd, similar to the way "geek" and "nerd" have been in the US (what with iPods, rich computer guys, Lord of the Rings, and nerdcore rap).

YouTube video 1 | YouTube video 2

One thing the otaku have done is change the way they write "otaku" -- the new form uses an older character for the first syllable of "otaku" which is no longer in common use. The goal is to create a new word with different connotations.

Seth dismissed Nakagawa as talentless, but she's sort of a cultural icon for nerds in Japan -- she hangs out on 2ch, a very, very famous Japanese BBS, and, from seeing her interviews, she's extremely knowledgeable about old animation and comics. The fact that she's not ugly is a reason she's become famous -- a geek with good looks.