How to Hire Fake Friends and Family (theatlantic.com)

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In Japan, you can pay an actor to impersonate your relative, spouse, coworker, or any kind of acquaintance.

Money may not be able to buy love,  but here in Japan, it can certainly buy the appearance of love—and  appearance, as the dapper Ishii Yuichi insists, is everything. As a man  whose business involves becoming other people, Yuichi would know. The  handsome and charming 36-year-old is on call to be your best friend,  your husband, your father, or even a mourner at your funeral.His 8-year-old company, Family Romance,  provides professional actors to fill any role in the personal lives of  clients. With a burgeoning staff of 800 or so actors, ranging from  infants to the elderly, the organization prides itself on being able to  provide a surrogate for almost any conceivable situation.Yuichi  believes that Family Romance helps people cope with unbearable absences  or perceived deficiencies in their lives. In an increasingly isolated  and entitled society, the CEO predicts the exponential growth of his  business and others like it, as à la carte human interaction becomes the  new norm.

I sat down recently with Yuichi in a café on the outskirts of Tokyo, to  discuss his business and what it means to be, in the words of his  company motto, “more than real.”  Read more...