Bin 10/1

 

Talking About People Who Talk to Stuffed Animals Are Nice

Among everything I’ve read recently, People Who Talk to Stuffed Animals Are Nice stands out as the one that made me think the most. At the same time, I’m not totally sure I even understand what it’s really saying—because the angles the author is trying to explore are so wide and tangled.

If I had to break it down simply, I’d say this story touches on three big themes: social interaction, love, and gender.

First, the book really gets into the awkwardness of teenage social life. School is this weird “in-between” space—halfway between family and adult society—where kids first start to care about things like how others see them, or the fear of being left out. That’s why Nanamori is always smiling around his classmates, and why Tarayama is funny and humorous in the café. They’re performing for others. But even if you get rid of this kind of fake, forced friendliness, that doesn’t mean people will suddenly connect in a deeper way. Even in the stuffed animal club, nobody really shares personal stuff, and what you say to your plushie isn’t supposed to be overheard. That made me wonder: how do people ever really understand each other? The loneliness inside a group can feel so heavy.

The second theme is love—or more like, confusion about what love actually is. Nanamori gets into a relationship, but mostly because of peer pressure. He can’t even tell the difference between “liking someone as a friend” and “liking someone as a partner.” At one point the text says he prefers Mugito over Shiraki, which seems to hint at the difference between practical, socially safe relationships versus pure, genuine ones. With Shiraki, he feels protected—it’s a relationship that shields him from sticking out socially. With Mugito, it’s different. They can talk about favorite writers, hang out for long stretches, and share a kind of closeness that feels more authentic.

Then there’s the theme of gender identity and social expectations, which is probably the most important one in the novel. Nanamori really hates dividing people strictly by gender. He’s more interested in looking at individuals for who they are. He notices how patriarchy shows up in something as simple as a poster, and it disgusts him. I’d call his mindset more of a “struggle” than a rebellion—because even though he questions these norms, he’s also still stuck in them. For example, he’s drawn to Shiraki partly because of her “patriarchal” vibe, and while he hates how guys talk about women like objects, he also feels insecure about not being masculine enough himself.

Toward the end of the excerpt, I found myself thinking about the blurry line between what society calls “normal” and “abnormal.” Talking on the phone on a train seems normal, but talking to a stuffed animal feels abnormal. But who decides that? Why is having earbud while you talk fine, but pretending to chat with a toy is “weird”? In a way, Nanamori’s dislike of “normal” social interaction is its own kind of headset—just another performance. So where does society’s idea of “normal” even come from?

Finally, I can’t help but feel the author is criticizing social media in this story, just like in Realizing Fun Things Through Water. In that piece, a younger sister spreads fake news online and ends up drowning in guilt. Here, Omae has Nanamori criticize how social media spreads hate and reduces people to categories—gender, nationality, whatever—without seeing them as individuals. Maybe the point is that social media doesn’t just reflect stereotypes, but actively helps shape them. And in that way, it has a big hand in how patriarchy and gender norms keep messing with our sense of self.