The Japanese Internet’s Gift to Hardware

Japan keeps mailing the rest of the internet things it didn’t order. The doorknob girls were exactly what they sounded like: young women photographed and filmed licking doorknobs, handles, and various household fixtures with what could generously be called commitment. No context offered, none required. The genre flourished briefly as one of those inexplicable subcultural flowers that bloom specifically from Japanese net culture and then vanish before anyone can decide whether to be aroused or confused. Speaking personally: both, simultaneously, and not in a way I found particularly unwelcome.