Glasses Anybody?

I always wear contacts to work, but today I came out with glasses.

I have a bit of complicated work right now, and sadly I thought I’d have to stay in office tonight. It gets extremely troublesome and tiring too, when I have to keep wearing contacts on occasions like this so I decided to wear my glasses, but fortunately it looks like I can hit my bed at home tonight.

A long time ago I wrote that in countries outside of Japan, Japanese people are many times associated with glasses and buckteeth. Dunno ‘bout the buckteeth part, but yeah, I guess the glasses part is right, sort of. The glasses population here is pretty big.

Until just a little while ago glasses represented either dorkiness or geekiness if not book beaters, but today glasses are so widespread as fashion especially among young generations that so many people wear fake glasses like any other accessory.

Quite a number of TV personalities, actors/actresses, idols and comedians wear glasses like they’re part of their faces, and books on megane (glasses) and megane-fashion like “Megane Danshi” (boys in glasses) and “Bijo Megane”(glasses beauty) are selling off the shelves.

The impressions or preconceptions against glasses are totally dependent on each individual, I suppose, but the common impression is probably “intelligent”. The results of a research carried out by a major ad company also says, 1) intelligent 2) stylish, fashion and 3) serious.

So what exactly is this fad?
Are intelligent looking people more popular than others?

Let’s get a closer look at this phenomenon.

First of all, why are meganekko girls (girls with glasses) so popular?
I have heard several stories about this, but the major one says that because glasses are more associated with men rather than women, when women wear such “muscular” things it gives out strong attraction. It’s not only that. There are four kinds:

Strait-A-Student Type: The leader kind of people in classrooms. Dislikes troubles and rather strict about rules.
majime-type (serious) in the above research, probably.

Older Sister Type: Women older and higher in rank, like female bosses and teachers who look intelligent and cool.
chiteki-type (intelligent)

Otaku Type: As it says – when men wear geeky glasses no one really likes it, but girls with geeky glasses seem to be rather popular. As a tendency, it might be close to the Straight-A-Student type, but this type tacitly assumes the gap between the face with (uncool, unsmart)and without glasses (adorable). It’s sophisticated.

Fashionable Type: Glasses rule as fashion! This one is slightly different from the other three. Some do wear fake ones, but not always. It’s totally up to the mood and fashion coordination of that day. Nothing inspirational mentally like the above three.

Hmm, looks pretty deep. I might want to continue writing about this as a series.