Wow, this article from GQ uses the term "fetishize" to describe both the parties and the book series.

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http://www.gq.com/story/japanese-cry-parties

Japan's Latest Trend:  Crying Parties

By Freddie Campion
May 7, 2015

Japanese people aren’t known for showing emotion in public. Take former politician Ryutaro Nonomura, for instance, who became a national laughing stock last year when he went on television to explain allegations of corruption and, to put it bluntly, totally lost his shit in an epic display of wailing and fist-beating.
     
Japanese people are known, however, for their ability to fetishize pretty much anything, as anyone who has ever played that misguided game where you think of a random noun and then google it along with the words "Japanese" and "porn" already knows. And it’s in that spirit of turning everything into a clinical spectacle that a new trend of crying parties have begun sprouting up all over the country.

As The Altantic reports, the events, known as rui-katsu or "tear-seeking", came out of a similarly off-beat practice known as "divorce parties"—a kind of backwards marriage where recently divorced couples smash their wedding ringsas a way to symbolize the end of their union. "After watching his clients shed tears and then leave on better terms," The Atlantic reports, "[Hiroki Terai, who invented the practice] got the idea to start hosting rui-katsu events."

It soon spread via word-of-mouth, and there are said to be regular events now in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka, which attract a whole host of people from different walks of life. Teri has since gone on to write a series of books about crying, including this tome, which is plainly described as "photos of attractive men sobbing."(Like I already said, they can fetishize anything.)

The most fascinating thing about the practice of rui-katsu—other than the idea of a group of strangers meeting up to cry in a big group for 45 minutes—is that they’re not expected to just do it on cue. As the article explains, they watch increasingly sadder and sadder videos first—such as this notoriously weep-inducing Thai life insurance commercial—to get into the mood. Word to the wise: Don’t watch that Thai life insurance commercial. It. Will. Fuck. Your. Day. Up.

http://www.gq.com/story/japanese-cry-parties

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Last edited by Diana (February 12, 2016 5:29 am)