EVERYDAY LABELS | Part 2-3: The Texture of Trust: A Ritual Read by Only 6%

---
author: Julian Fenwick
archive_id: SA-Lore01-essay-2-3-en
title: The Texture of Trust: A Ritual Read by Only 6%
series: JF-LORE / Lore01_EVERYDAY LABELS
language: en
status: final
classification: hypothesis
clearance_level: public
cross_ref: []
location: North Wing, 2F
tags: essay, label, texture, statistics, ritual
source: StudioAsahi Core Archive
version: 3
---

Part 2-3: The Texture of Trust: A Ritual Read by Only 6%

Text Read by Only 6%: Why Does an "Unread Label" Have Meaning?

When initialising a digital device or installing an application, we are confronted by a vast "User Agreement." For someone like me, who once made a living from editing and proofreading, there is a certain sense of guilt in continuing to generate text that will not be read. Yet, in the modern world, how many people actually read every line to verify the appropriateness of the terms before clicking "Agree"?

That "ritualistic scroll," where one simply slides a finger. Exactly the same phenomenon is occurring with the labels on Japanese daily goods.

Human cognitive resources have limits. When information exceeds a certain threshold, the brain abandons processing items individually and relegates them to the "background." In design terms, this is called "attention fatigue" or "banner blindness," but the density of Japanese labels seems to test this limit on a daily basis.

In fact, according to one survey, only about 6% of consumers actually read the detailed cautionary notes included with a product in their entirety. In other words, 94% of the words etched onto a label are destined to be "ignored" from the moment of their birth.

A conscience as an editor would want to call this a "failure of communication." However, as I observe the structure of Japanese society, I have reached a different conclusion.

Perhaps the label functions not as a "thing to be read," but as a "thing to show that it exists."

For example, when we see the back of a product for the first time and find it packed with infinitesimal, orderly characters, we feel a "certain sense of peace of mind" before we even understand the content. This is because the fact that "the company has spent this much time and cost to fulfil its accountability" arises as a visual texture, even if we don't actually verify the information.

What is functioning here is not the "meaning" of individual pieces of data. It is the "state" of it being written that acts as an "interface of trust" between the company and the consumer. It is, so to speak, a "Social UI" (User Interface) using words.

One could also view this phenomenon as a kind of "modern ritual." Just as a Japanese amulet (omamori) contains sutras that are not intended to be read, perhaps the very "form" of the modern label exerts a power of protection—avoiding liability and maintaining trust.

Proof of this is that Japanese consumers can feel a sense of wariness when they encounter a package with "too much white space." They suspect that "something important is being hidden" or that "corners have been cut." Here, the density of information serves as a "proof of sincerity," providing a nudge to people's subconscious.

Even without scrutinising the content, simply being presented in the "correct format" leads us to accept it as something "official" or "correct." There is an anecdote from an experiment abroad where a note saying "I will pay a reward to anyone who reads this far" was inserted into a Terms and Conditions document, and almost no one noticed. This is a classic example of "form" triumphing over "meaning."

Of course, the label is not entirely meaningless. While it may be ignored as part of the scenery, the moment a "crack in the system" occurs—such as an allergy accident or an unexpected malfunction—the label rises sharply to the foreground and begins to function as cold "evidence."

Normally, it sinks quietly into the social background as "external memory"; only in times of crisis is it summoned as a "medium for recording the location of responsibility."

By being ignored, it maintains peace; by being read, it adjudicates conflict. The mysterious medium of the Japanese label is established upon an exquisite balance of such contradictions.

The state of "being written here" has already quietly completed a social agreement.

— Julian Fenwick

Editorial Note from MONA: The concept of the "Texture of Trust" proposed by Julian might be seen as the physical visualisation of the Japanese "air" (atmosphere) through text. Text that functions by being ignored by 94% of people. It points to a social skeleton that exists further outside the concept of "communication" that we, who make a living from creating sentences, struggle with every day.

Archive Manager's Note (OOO): This manuscript suggests a separation between the "content of meaning" and the "form of existence" of data. From a systemic perspective, this can be seen as a state where metadata has overtaken the body of the data itself. Through the records up to JF-LORE-02-1003, the "ritualistic nature of information" in Japanese labels has been defined.