TEHRAN - A Japanese man named Tocco has been making headlines for transforming himself into a dog. Tocco paid about $14K to a Japanese firm making customs for TV films and commercials to create him a hyper-realistic outfit. The Japanese man took his first walk as a “dog” in public earlier this month and has been gaining international attention ever since.

Tocco has made a YouTube channel where he can be seen playing on all fours and fetching things like a real animal. There is not much information on Tocco’s familial and psychological background but nobody seems to be questioning it either. The man turned dog claims “becoming a dog was a childhood dream” for him and Western media seems to be buying that whether intentionally or unintentionally. Though Tocco’s story might be bizarre and unorthodox for many, people turning themselves into animals seems to have become an almost recurring theme in Western or Western-Influenced societies. 

What’s now being called the “woke” culture seems to have infiltrated any public space in Western countries. Students are especially the group that are staring down the barrel of an identity crisis more than others. In June of this year it was revealed that a teacher in London had called her students “despicable” because they had refused to recognize one of their classmates as a cat. The teacher told pupils that they would not be welcome at the school if they continued to express the view that “only boys and girls exist”. 

There are even people in the West that have started to see objects as potential companions and even romantic partners. In 2018, a Japanese man appeared everywhere on social media after he announced that he’d got married to a fictional character. Akihiko Kondo married the fictional character saying “she makes me smile” and that she is the only person in his life that truly gets him. The 38 year old later tried to raise awareness about his unusual relationship and opened up about the struggles of his so supposed marriage. According to a report by the New York Times, there are thousands of people like Kondo who have tied the knot with fictional characters, most of whom live in Japan. 

Looking at the rising number of such cases, it would only make sense to look at them as part of a bigger societal and psychological issue than individual cases of abnormality.

Why are people in West losing sense of reality?

A sense of nihilism seems to have taken over the Western world. People and especially the youth cannot find a meaningful cause to live for. The governments’ attempts at eradicating religion and the media looking down on any form of religious beliefs have in fact diminished the quality of life in the West. With nothing to guide people, millions of Western citizens have found themselves lost in an abyss of nothingness. 

The society’s emphasis on individualism and a lack of deep relations seems to have made things even worse. According to official data, over half of the children born in the West are born outside marriages. Years of meaningless interactions and human isolation has completely laid waste to the family as a unifying unit and has contributed to a worsening mental health situation among Western people. More than half of the population in a country like Sweden needs to be on antidepressants to function properly. Countries who are pioneers in the so-called woke culture also have the highest rates of suicide which happens the most among younger generations. A lack of social/familial support and no religious guidelines to look up to has turned Western youths into ever-wandering individuals who have no hope to keep on living. 

All of this has led to a sense of alienation among people and has got them thinking that being a human is no longer worth it. Some of those in distress who end up not killing themselves, form connections with dogs and cats instead of humans and eventually seek to become like that which makes them feel at home. Some decide to turn themselves into pets, as animals seem to receive more love and affection than humans in the Western world.