I sure was being ironic, but looking back, maybe not entirely. Unfortunately eating disorders are still considered 'cool' in certain circles, here in the west. And I'm not even talking of those very sick kids who blog daily about their food restrictions and share what they call "thinspo" (pictures of scarily thin models and celebrities they consider pretty - just do a #proana or #promia search on tumblr, you'll see what I'm talking about). I have a bunch of (fairly sane and normal) female acquaintances who lowkey brag about their methods for maintaining their underweight silhouette. They don't make a big deal out of it, but will occasionaly mention how they stuff their faces with a huge brunch every Sunday, then puke it out. Some people seem to find this cool, considering the ladies in question are total glam dolls. Similarly, hard drugs were considered cool in Germany back in the 1970s-80s. A kid called Christiane F. wrote a book about her heroin habits and they made a film starring a pretty and scarily thin model in her role. Then they added in David Bowie, lots of shots of the kids shooting up to 'Heroes' and lots of Berlinesque eye candy. As a result, European kids started to think heroin was cool and the 'junkie' look became a form of aesthetic.
TL;DR: I can totally see young kids thinking bulimia is a cool/cute thing to have. But I have no idea if that's the case in Japan. (heck, I hope not)
I searched "Christiane.F" on the internet. There are some posts on blogs in my country. After reading the rough plot of the movie, I can see the meaning of your profile photo. I'm grown too much to watch the movie, but you made me interested in David Bowie.
(Yes, I'm completely ignorant about Western pop music)
I know there are a handful of girls who boast anorexia and extremely thin body. However, the influence of such girls are limited only on-line. I doubt if the photos or experiences they post are all real. We know there are crazy people who try to gain people's attention and show off their grotesque photos and stories. In many cases, photos are manipulated or fake. Of course, there will be real cases.
I guess 95% of people are not interested in such things, 4.9% of people will be disgusted with it. And less than 0.1% will admire it.
I may be wrong. I can't know exactly if I am not belong directly to the group.
Anyway, I've never met people who praised their eating disorder off-line. In my society, there is a difference between the cyber space and the real space. I think the neighboring country, Japan, will be the same. But is it different in Europe? Do they boast their bulimia publicly in the real world? At schools or at workplaces or in regional meetings? If so, wow, it's obviously a cultural difference.
By the way, bulimia is a difficult word. As far as I can understand from the dictionary, it's an eating disorder associated with binge eating, right? But is it clear that hide was bingeing? I heard several times that Yoshiki talked about hide's vomiting, but never heard about bingeing.
