JapanEat - The Textual Interpretation of International Fast Food

December 1, 2024.

Hey, remember when I said I’d be back on 11/3? Yeah… whoops. In my defense, in the time between last article and that deadline, I went from working 2 days a week to working 6; as much as I’ve been enjoying the work, it’s been hard to do anything outside of it except scarf down food and watch YouTube. So I guess it makes sense that I’m writing about food YouTube, huh?

During my last round of job hunting (thank god I’m not dealing with THAT anymore), I realized that I like analyzing marketing a lot more than I like actually doing it. Which means that when I see, say, two JapanEat videos about fast food chains in Japan, it gets a certain clump of my braincells going wild— not because I actually care about fast food chains’ profits (screw ‘em), but because they’re fascinating case studies. Case studies that we need to take with a whole boulder of salt, since I’m going off of two YouTube shorts and a deeply myopically American cultural perspective, but case studies nonetheless. So if any Denny’s or Shake Shack executives are reading this, for the love of God don’t take this random 22-year-old’s blog post as advice.

About JapanEat

JapanEat is a content creator on YouTube and TikTok who specializes in shortform videos about Japanese food. His videos usually focus on hole-in-the-wall small businesses he finds while out and about, though he also reviews viral foods and limited-edition items from well-known chains. Though he is far from the only shortform Japanese food content creator, he stands out among his peers for his stream-of-consciousness commentary style, which often references nerd culture.

In his video “I tried Denny’s in Japan and it was nothing like home,” JapanEat goes over the myriad differences between American and Japanese Denny’s; in particular, Japanese Denny’s is less casual, has a larger menu (including more traditional Japanese food), and is less stereotypically prone to violence. Meanwhile, in “Fast Food in Japan is Different (until it’s not…)”, he states that Japanese Shake Shack is indistinguishable from its American counterpart, even though other fast food brands tend to change their menus for their Japanese locations.

Is A Hamburger A Text?

Colloquially, “text” means words. A hamburger is not words. (Unless you get really creative with how you squeeze your ketchup.) For this question to even make sense, we have to use a much broader definition of “text,” summarized best in The Word on College Reading and Writing (2018):

In academic terms, a text is anything that conveys a set of meanings to the person who examines it... If we can look at something, explore it, find layers of meaning in it, and draw information and conclusions from it, we’re looking at a text. (Burnell et al., p. 3)

To convey just how broad this definition is, Burnell et al. include a list of counterintuitive examples of texts. While many are still forms of media you would commonly analyze in a classroom— “movies, paintings, television shows” (ibid.)— the two that are most relevant here are “advertisements” and “rooms full of people” (ibid.). While other forms of media can theoretically exist outside of capitalism (if capitalism ended today, you could still write a novel), “if the economy wasn’t organized according to capitalist systems, then the rituals, ideas, and forms of advertising wouldn’t exist, because there wouldn’t be the same impulse to increase market share and profit that creates the needs for ads” (Holm, 2023, p. 71). Considering advertising to be a text means that their conceptual reliance on the profit motive does not prevent their creations from being texts; you still get meaning from it, even if the meaning is “give us money.” If anything, because “advertising works as an ideological force that legitimates the capitalist system more broadly” (ibid., p. 72), it is actually especially important to analyze as texts, particularly if you’re taking a critical/anti-capitalist lens to it.

“Rooms full of people” is the weirder one. Rooms full of people are not a form of media, at least not by any common or workable definition. To count them as a text means that, when defining a “text” like Burnell et al., a text doesn’t even have to be media so long as it has meaning. It may seem difficult to think of how non-media can have meaning— isn’t “media” defined by its ability to convey messages? But, somewhat ironically considering my last paragraph, the people who understand non-media meaning best seem to be the branding folk. Take this quote from Design Coordination and Corporate Image (1967):

A corporation has many points of contact with various groups of people. It has premises, works products, packaging, stationary, forms, vehicles, publications and uniforms, as well as the usual kind of promotional activities... [those who see these things] build up their idea of the corporation from what they see and experience of it. (Henrion and Parkin, p. 7, qtd. in Moor, 2007, pp. 30-31)

The corporate image is a tangled web of meanings that people glean from corporate objects, including non-media objects like vehicles and uniforms; in order for an object to affect corporate image, it therefore must have meaning, and therefore must be a text. And this certainly must include the products a company puts out— if anything, that’s the object people most associate with a given corporation. So a company’s product, from toothpaste to cell phones to, yes, a fast food chain’s hamburger, can be a text, and thus can be picked apart as such.

Uncanny Brand Alignment

Okay, it’s finally time to talk about JapanEat. As he notes in “Fast Food in Japan is Different,” Japanese Shake Shack locations are exactly the same as their American locations (save for the menus being in Japanese, for hopefully obvious reasons; 2023, 0:12). From a business strategy standpoint, this makes a lot of sense. If people construct the corporate image— i.e. the brand— from the meanings they get from every part of the company they see (Henrion and Parkin, 1967, p. 7, qtd. in Moor, 2007, pp. 30-31), the company becomes clearer when those meanings are kept similar to each other. In fact, it is generally accepted among marketers that “the minimization of diversity between identity components is good for brands” and that “corporate brand gaps/misalignments are cultural pitfalls that might be avoided” (Mingione, 2015, p. 523). This concept is called “brand alignment.”

A similar argument can be found in consumer psychology; “cognitive consistency theories suggest that consumers are predisposed to prefer elements cognitively consistent with their existing knowledge,” including information regarding brands they already know (Magnusson et al., 2019, p. 323). Based on these theories, keeping J-Shake Shack as similar as possible to American Shake Shack makes sure that the messages they give to consumers, through ALL their delicious burger-y texts, are as consistent as possible, increasing brand alignment and thus benefiting their image among consumers.

But that’s an oversimplification. JapanEat notes that other fast food brands often make changes to their menu, decor, and other brand elements when operating locations in Japan (2023, 0:00); it’s unlikely that huge companies like Taco Bell and McDonald’s simply forgot to do brand alignment when they entered Japan. Rather, there are times that total brand alignment isn’t the way to go. Some marketing scholars argue that “strategies such as corporate brand internationalization or globalization”— such as an American fast food chain going to Japan— “might require adaptation to the new cultural contexts,” as that context can give the same message, object, or other text a completely different meaning (Mingione, 2015, p. 523). In fact, in situations where one’s target audience holds negative stereotypes about a brand’s country of origin, it has been found that the benefits of distancing the brand from that country and those stereotypes outweighs the downsides of misalignment and incongruence (Magnusson et al., 2019, pp. 324, 333). Shake Shack’s decision to align their Japanese and American locations as closely as possible risks potential faux pas as American-oriented brand elements might not land as well with a Japanese audience.

But the Japanese Shake Shack presents a whole different problem with brand over-alignment; the uncanny. Cultural critic Mark Fisher writes that “Freud’s unheimlich [the uncanny] is about the strange within the familiar, the strangely familiar, the familiar as strange,” captured by how unheimlich itself better translates to unhomely (2016, p. 2). For JapanEat, an American living in Japan, the hyper-familiar Shake Shack can be that strange familiar. Though Freud’s unheimlich tends to stem from repetition (ibid.), we notably don't think of the repetition of fast food chains as uncanny per se; we don’t get weirded out when two Burger Kings or Sonics or whatever look the same. Honestly, it’s weirder when they don’t… but to again quote Fisher, “the weird is that which does not belong” (ibid., p. 3, emphasis in original). Based on our overall expectations of what fast food is like in America versus Japan, and how American chains usually change when they enter Japan, an unchanged US-Shake Shack “does not belong” in Japan. When it appears, it can be weird; as a repetition of the American locations, it can be uncanny.

Fitting the Famiresu

Denny’s does not have this issue. In fact, Denny’s has basically the exact opposite of this issue. From the friendlier atmosphere to the better service to the more extensive menu, conspicuously LACKING the iconic “Grand Slam” (JapanEat, 2024b, 0:15; Kristin Abroad, 2021), Japanese Denny’s is nearly unrecognizable as the somewhat depressing diner we know and “love” in America. It is much more recognizable as a famiresu (ファミレス, meaning “family restaurant”), a genre of restaurant in Japan marked by a casual atmosphere, low prices, a large menu, and popularity among (but not exclusivity towards) families and children (Schauwecke et al., 2024). You know, basically the same list of things.

In the context of the brand alignment pros and cons I talked about last section, the thought process behind these changes feels fairly clear. Denny’s is known for its 24-hour service and low prices (Kristin Abroad, 2021), which are already offered by other famiresu chains (Schauwecke et al., 2024), and famiresu already take a lot of inspiration from Western diners in their menu, presentation, and even seating arrangements (ibid.). Despite their many differences, these similarities are (were) an opportunity to map Denny’s onto the existing famiresu formula. And remember that self-incongruity, while usually considered a liability, becomes an asset when attempting to distance a brand from negative associations (Magnusson et al., 2019, p. 323); while Magnusson et al. study cultural/national stereotypes specifically, I can’t imagine that this phenomenon wouldn’t also apply to other negative brand associations. Negative brand associations that Denny’s has a lot of, and that are the butt of many jokes (JapanEat, 2024b, 0:25; Kristin Abroad, 2021). Un-aligning J-Denny’s from American Denny’s, then, serves to both avoid the baggage that comes with the US-Denny’s brand and better fit consumer expectations in Japan.

The downside is, of course, that it feels weird again. While someone used to US-Shake Shacks may get an uncanny feeling in its Japanese locations, someone used to US-Denny’s will feel like a straight-up dimension hopper in Japan, transported to a timeline where Denny’s is actually good. (Too far?) French anthropologist Marc Augé, in Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, writes:

If a place can be defined as relational, historical and concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity will be a non-place. (1992/1997, pp. 77-78)

Then what do we call a space which is relational/historical/concerned with an identity, but only one that is not its own? Denny’s locations in Japan are much more concerned with the famiresu, a restaurant category that isn’t really a thing in Denny’s’ home country, than they are with Denny’s itself. And so Denny’s-goers familiar with both its American locations and Japanese famiresu chains— Denny’s-goers like JapanEat— enter it as both a place and a non-place,* a space relational/historical/identified to the (subjectively) “wrong” thing. And what did Fisher say about the “weird” again?

*I should note that Augé himself says that no space is entirely place or non-place; “the scrambled game of identity and relations is ceaselessly rewritten” everywhere despite any efforts to freeze or obliterate them (1992/1997, p. 79). But this is less a case of relations being rewritten over time and more of multiple sets of relations existing vs. failing to exist simultaneously, in ways that one may not expect.

Comparison Is The Thief Of… Brand Strategy?

There’s a blind spot in these theories; who finds these places weird? JapanEat himself finds them at least novel enough to talk about. But JapanEat, as an American both living in and making a living (presumably) off of content about Japan, has fairly extensive knowledge of both Japanese and American iterations of fast food chains. He is able to easily, directly, and gut-feeling-ly compare the two in a way many others can’t… and it is specifically that comparison, with the American locations treated as the baseline, that makes the phenomena I described happen. Someone who grew up with the Japanese locations may feel strange in the American locations, for the very same reasons, and would feel more at home in the Japanese locations. As a tiny anecdotal example, in my “research” (Googling) for this article, I found a Japanese blogger’s post about Denny’s that (unlike most other English-language J-Denny’s content) does not even mention US-Denny’s, much less try to compare the two (Shimada, 2023). Though only one example, it shows that when you bring a brand from one market to another, you actually can’t assume everyone in that market will be comparing what you did there and then to what you do here and now.

Even when comparison is possible, not all consumers may react the same way. Magnusson et al. do find that, in general, consumers think more highly of a brand when it aligns with stereotypes* of its country of origin (2019, pp. 323, 329). This is put in terms of consumers believing in a brand’s cultural “authenticity,” a very complicated subject that is relevant but I straight up do not have time to get into right now— though I will note that JapanEat says that “if you’re looking for the most authentic American meal in Japan, maybe [Shake Shack] is the place to go” (2023, 0:42). If we assume based on this that US-Shake Shack’s brand components match up with an overall stereotype of America, then keeping J-Shake Shack the same can be beneficial even when compared to US-Shake Shack.

*NOTE: They define country stereotypes as mental schemas that “reflect a person’s perceptions about the features of a country and are developed through socialization processes and exposure to information about countries” (Magnusson et al., 2019, p. 320). While this includes the negative, false, and bigoted stereotypes we mean when we use that word colloquially, they mean it more broadly, capturing basically our entire idea of how a particular country is characterized.

And while some may find the similarity uncanny, others may find it comforting:

A paradox of non-place: a foreigner lost in a country he does not know (a ‘passing stranger’) can feel at home there only in the anonymity of motorways, service stations, big stores or hotel chains. (Auge, 1992/1997, p. 106).

Plot twist: all that stuff I wrote about the uncanny? That was my reaction. JapanEat describes himself as “in a way… actually really relieved” (2024b, 0:52; though it’s unclear if this is just the setup to the following joke).

This all raises another question; what actually makes comparison possible? Though most can’t travel halfway across the world to eat a burger, learning ABOUT these different (and not-so-different) locations is a quick Google search away. Could sufficient knowledge about brands in other countries affect, in the same way and/or to the same degree, how we view them here? It’s a fast-food-brand version of the Mary’s Room thought experiment, and its answer fundamentally affects global brand strategy in the interconnected era. This is further complicated by the fact that, well, information we get from the internet is often sensationalized, oversimplified, and stereotyped— especially when it comes to Japan and being characterized as “weird.” I argue this isn’t an internet-only problem; Augé, writing just barely during its infancy, states that “the imagination of a person who has never been to Tahiti or Marrakesh takes flight the moment these names are read or heard” (1992/1997, p. 95). Instead, it’s more an issue, well, getting your mental schema of a country near-entirely from (sensationalized) media about it, regardless of what kind of media that is. Because of this, my personal answer to this Mary’s Room-style question is that online exposure to other cultures does not replace direct experience… yet at the same time, it is still a kind of exposure, which still allows for some (if not perfect) comparison, which still affects how one’s international brand strategy will be received.

And you know who seems to understand that? 7-Eleven. Back in July of this year (wait, that long ago? Time is so fake.), the convenience store made headlines for its plans to make its US locations a little more like its Japanese ones, particularly by offering fresher food (Shure, 2024). J-7-Elevens have gotten a lot of attention online for their unique products and general higher quality compared to US-7-Elevens— in fact, JapanEat makes J-7-Eleven content somewhat frequently (2024a; 2024c). This may be a moment where the ability to compare international locations of a chain, if remotely and imperfectly, had enough impact on a brand’s image that it compelled them to change their strategy. Or, more broadly, compelled us to change what we expect out of the franchises we find so familiar… and perhaps for the better.

Conclusion

Wow, this one got away from me. If I were a serious scholar in serious academia, this would be a line of inquiry I’d want to follow— gather more evidence and case studies, find other theory to draw from etc. However, I am a very silly scholar of very silly (pseudo-)academia, and I want to try to make each of my articles different from each other. So while I probably won’t build on this going forward (unless I find something really exciting), I hope this serves as a good starting point for working through culture shock, especially that which you feel remotely.

I want to try to get back on my usual first-Sunday-of-the-month schedule, though to be honest, I’m not sure it’s feasible. On top of my usual six-days-a-week schedule, I’m picking up a whole bunch of extra shifts this month, so I’m quite literally working every day until [picture me checking my calendar] Christmas Eve. So expect next article to be late, and/or short, and/or clearly re-used from an old college assignment. Whatever keeps this blog active without totally burning me out. See you whenever!

References

Cite This Article (APA)

Miller, A. (2024, December 1). JapanEat - The Textual Interpretation of International Fast Food. Grab a Shovel. https://primmsfairytale.neocities.org/blog/2024-12-01-JapanEat