Sub-Cultures With High Fertility: In Japan, UK, and Australia

In this episode, Simone and I delve into a fascinating conversation about various subcultures that have emerged in response to modern societal challenges. We focus on the Yankees of Japan, the Dinos of the UK, and the Tradies of Australia, exploring how these distinctly different yet surprisingly similar groups share common traits like high fertility rates, rebelliousness, and a mistrust of mainstream societal institutions. Join us as we unpack how these subcultures thrive outside the urban monoculture and what it means for the future of society. Plus, stay tuned for insights into our latest projects and how you can get involved.

[00:00:00]

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be discussing a phenomenon where a certain convergently evolved cultural subgroup that is derivative often of American cultural subgroups in popular with the lower classes within a number of countries is. Staying or becoming one of the core high fertility communities,

Simone Collins: it shall inherit the future.

Malcolm Collins: Exactly. And the first of these is going to be the Yankees of Japan. Yes. If you, I, I'll put a clip of one here

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Malcolm Collins: I want daughters who act like that, by the way. That is, that is my plan is a hundred percent. But it's a culture that if you watch anime, you're [00:01:00] likely familiar with, in which people sort of dress like greasers. And they form gangs.

Greasers being the 1950s American subculture. And they focus on a lot of Americana. This. And then the,

Simone Collins: so not, not exactly. So yeah. Yankee culture is, is more just kind of like this. Yes. There's, there's the greaser hairstyle in many cases, like perms and little buffon and stuff. But there is just general, like as, as younger kids, they were hooligans, they had bike gangs.

They caused destruction to property. But the movement now has evolved into what is referred to as mild Yankees, which are basically the grownup version of these people, and they've kind of switched out their. Souped up biker game bikes for God, what are they called? These weird looking Toyota cars that they spend way too much money on the, the Toyota LL Fire.

It's like this really boxy van. Just look it up. It's, it's a thing. [00:02:00] And they're actually now known for being like fairly responsible, but they still kind of maintained a little bit of that rebellious streak. So basically what

Malcolm Collins: happened, and we're gonna go into a tweet that I think gives it into this really well, is they picked up this greaser rebellious, for rebellious sake culture that ended up being very similar to sort of redneck culture in the United States Truck Nut conservatives in the United States that we pointed out.

This is a uniquely resistant to fertility collapse group and being reactively. Anti-authority and anti trend following. Yeah. Like mainstream trends mm-hmm. Is in the US and for obvious reasons, protective of fertility rates. Yeah. And it has acted protectively for this subculture and other subcultures as they've aged out of their pointless, rebellious phases.

Simone Collins: Well, but I think what's really interesting about this group and also the other groups that we're going to explore in the United States, Australia, the uk, that bear a lot of similarities is. It. This rebelliousness also is correlated [00:03:00] with, or just exists alongside a fundamental mistrust in like mainstream societal institutions being plugged into mainstream news and also believing in things like the lifelong corporate job and going to university.

So these groups also tend to either. Not even finish high school, but at at least definitely at very low rates go to university, so they're not getting higher education. And the, the, the man who actually coined the term mild Yankee, his name is Ada Yohe, he wrote this book called Yankee Economics, the New Conservatives as the Leaders of Consumption.

He, he described them as the last Japanese generation to have parents who enjoyed permanent regular. Employment in a normal way. And that actually as they aged, their rebelliousness eased up a little bit because fewer and fewer of their parents had jobs and incomes that sort of allowed them to like wield social control that they might even like buck up against.

So I think that also this generation. [00:04:00] More at the lower ends of the economic spectrum to begin with. Also was the first to see the crumbling of the lifelong corporate job, which was a really big thing in Japan, but certainly a big thing everywhere else too. So they also like, I think, are among the first cultures to start going off the grid.

And by going off the grid, I mean not buying in to something that has turned out to be a fundamental lie. And that buying into also correlates with low. Fertility in that, the, the, the lifelong corporate job or buying into that kind of fantasy of like, I'm gonna make a lot of money. I'm gonna go to university, is the IQ shredder.

It is the moving to the cities, it is the going to university and getting the demanding job and not having time to live close to your family network and raise kids and just spend time with friends and, and, and live within your means and. This group is sort of naturally high fertility because these are the ones who aren't entering the

Malcolm Collins: fertility shredder.

Does that make sense? Well, they're also not as economically disadvantaged [00:05:00] as you would imagine, given their life choices. Yeah. At the same time, they decided to get outta the university pipeline focused on the trades. Mm-hmm. In Japan especially, those types of jobs were increasing in value or, or what they paid Yeah.

Relative to the types of lifelong corporate jobs that were really sort of breaking apart.

Simone Collins: Yeah, and what's interesting is, is some people have posited about softie, Yankee Keys in Japan that, oh, they're gonna disappear. They're not gonna last for long 'cause they're not very educated and you know, they, they won't be able to afford houses.

They will totally be able to afford houses. There are these like emptying out towns in Japan. Where they can buy houses, although they're typically stick sticking close to home and living within their means and using family for support and childcare. So, no, these, these people will be just fine.

Malcolm Collins: So to go into the original tweet thread that brought our attention to this, it said Miles Yankees are the winners of Japanese society.

Skip high school and uni several years, headstart and earn way more than a graduate in their twenties. Marry a guru. Buy a new house, [00:06:00] have kids. This is the way, and then it has some images of, of this culture. And we should put some images on screen of like what this culture looks like. It says in, they tend to stay within a 10 kilometer radius of their hometown.

So they keep strong family, friendship, bonds, making it easier to start a family. And it shows you know, a, a meme of them grilling with, with hamburgers, hot wives. The mild Yankee statue with their van. The boy was the soft mohawk bar barbecue on the holidays. My eldest daughter is learning to dance, beautiful wife.

And they have, well,

Simone Collins: I, I think it's not a van. I, I think, again, it's a Toyota Vall fire. And I, I want to understand the obsession with this vehicle that is so strange.

Malcolm Collins: And there's another thing here where it's, it's mild Yankee where it's a, a guy and his girlfriend and they have a baby. And it says, but and he says.