Idol singer still believes in Santa Claus, so her management asks fans to act like they do as well

Problematic what? She's in sixth grade. Its probably her last year or two for doing so. She's a child. Let her be one.

It's a Japanese pop idol at around 11 years old? Her entire life is currently a PR stunt, this included. Roll with it just in case, sure. It's still probably bs, though. Rather good bit of free publicity for the group, though.

*edit: I wrote this way too late at night. I usually have better grammar.

I mean why not? Nothing to be gained by being a jerk about it.

I already know & understand that Santa Claus exists, silly.

Since it’s sort of related and I love this story, I’m telling it.

My sister and her husband didn’t raise my (now 5yo) nephew with ‘Santa’ being real, but they also didn’t ever say he wasn’t. When he was 3, we were doing a Zoom call with the extended family and someone asked him if Santa was real. He said, “Santa’s pretend-real.”

Basically, no, he’s not, but the concept of Santa is real enough and so we talk about Santa as real.

My uncle then said, “Kind of like God!”

What could have been a dark turn for many families thankfully was just a hilarious moment for ours!

Still my favorite way to think about and describe both Santa and God, lol.

Wow, this sent me down a fascinating rabbit hole on that site. I should pay attention to this site more often. Like, we don't get a whole lot of Japanese news in the states, but some of this is fascinating (and depressing, like the Mt. Fuji Lawson's thing).

I came across this though: https://soranews24.com/2018/03/20/lesbian-idols-confession-of-love-prompts-veteran-to-say-idol-romance-restrictions-are-shit/

I found it fascinating from the standpoint that idol companies are branching out into the LGBT community to find new themes. I don't know how I feel about it; on the one hand, more representation is good, and if their public presence is authentic then it'd give LGBT Japanese people someone to look up to. On the other hand, it's a company capitalizing on the LGBT community.

Tbh, that said, something that I'd actually be kinda into is a trans idol group, with both mtf and ftm members. The idea though, would be to appeal to other trans people (as opposed to non-trans people) by making songs that talk about the trans experience, or documenting their transitions. Maybe part of the requirement for joining the group would be that you have to be pre-hrt and then you stay in the group until you're "passing" (or at their "final form" so to speak); so that, over time, you build up a wide array of experiences that gender-questioning people can draw from. Bonus points if the company doesn't try to force them to conform to a specific appearance or sound, letting trans women sing with their "man voice" and vice versa.

At least this shows that it's the idol INDUSTRY & not the fans that are the problem. People are quick to throw fandoms under the bus, they wouldn't behave in this manner if the INDUSTRY ITSELF didn't cultivate them in this manner

Ignoring the obvious.
I concur, letting the kid still have some innocence like that is nice.

This kid is going to have trust issues forever.

I also believe in Santa Clause. As portrayed by David Harbour in "Violent Night"

She probably doesn't... I suppose it's all for fun.