So this has been a trend I have been noticing lately. For instance, I went to a café today and noticed a tourist recording the baristas working. Later, I went to a bakery –and once again– there was a foreigner recording the workers.
When did this type of behavior become normalized? No respect for anyone's privacy. Not everyone wants to be in your tiktok.
You need to understand how seriously privacy is taken here. A lot of Japanese people will blur the faces of the people in the background of their photos and videos. Meanwhile, these folks will get their cameras up in anyone and everyone's faces.
On a side note, that is not as bad as some of the TikToks I have been seeing lately where they record children riding alone on the train — so they can harp on about how safe it is. Yeah, safe until the creepy gaijin showed up and posted someone's child on the internet without consent for TikTok attention.
by Kylemaxx
26 comments
Yeah I think there should be a video watched by tourist that come to Japan. Because they can definitely be sued for that.
Can you post a video of the tourists recording the service workers to help people spread the message?
/s
Boomer take: I blame social media
A bit more nuanced: we live in a world where instant gratification and attention seeking is rewarded. Content is the name of the game and the people are the product.
It’s pretty gross.
I gotta stream bro! I gotta do the Tokyo stream walk around bro! How else am I going to get likes and share my experience without a camera in my face?!
I HAVE TO TELL ANONYMOUS PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET ABOUT EVERYTHING OTHERWISE MY LIFE HAS NO MEANING!
Seriously, whoever is recording kids on the train needs to be arrested that is insane.
The creepiest thing is the people recording high schoolers or even small children in uniform in the street just going to school. These get millions of views too. It is literally flabbergasting. AND some even make money from these videos.
Seen multiple foreigners going into the Meiji Jingu forested/garden area, where multiple signs tell you not to go, to record the kendo classes through gaps in the wall. Before you could see the class from the road but now it is all covered because of these assholes.
I politely told a group of French guys they are not allowed to do that and they aggressively told me to fuck off… in front of my 2 year old son.
Not just tourists.
My job I also get Japanese people photograph or film me without consent.
Sometimes they wave and want me to pose etc, which I don’t, cause I’m trying to work
Maybe go to the tourist sub and say this.
Yeah it’s fucking annoying but this isn’t really a tourist sub.
Sometimes I block their video by just going in front of it for something.
Seriously this is a ick no matter where you’re at in the world. Stop filming staff to post online without their permission.
100% agree. They act as they own the place just because they paid their flight ticket to come here. No respect for locals whatsoever. These people need to be publicly shamed for their behaviour to deter them for doing it. If not, we will see more people acting more brazenly, such as that Logan Paul idiot.
Couldn’t agree more. We can’t say no, either. Kinda like being hit on at work.
As a Japanese who is an English native I had to deal with all the tourists. The Chinese girl who left the restaurant because of her boyfriend’s body odor, the German tourists who dined and ditched, the Americans who sat and complained…That’s a story in itself.
I like to walk into the shot with a contemptuous look on my face.
This happens in their home countries too. It has nothing to do with being a tourist
Shichi-go-san with my grandkids at Meiji Jingu was a nightmare of fending off tourists trying to take pics of the kids without a by-your-leave. At one point we (parents and both sets of grandparents) stood together and had the kids in the middle while we waited, and a woman actually shoved her arm between two of us into the circle to try and snap my grandson. I opened my coat and blocked her, she was enraged. They were like paparazzi, ‘Over there!’ dash up, start snapping, run off. Disgusting behavior. They were doing it to everyone up and down the street in and out of the shrine, but seemed really enthusiastic about hafu looking kids. I just kept stepping in front of the kids and blocking them with a firm ‘No!’.
With social media, anyone who isn’t the main character of the story becomes an NPC to record for the gaze and placation of followers. Expectations of privacy just get an eye roll these days. It’s deeply disrespectful and tactless.
So when my family came to Japan we walked through Shinjuku Yokocho, and while we were looking for a place to eat we saw an American tourist standing in the doorway of a place FILMING THE SALARYMEN EATING THEIR FOOD. I think some people just lack any sense of decency or any awareness. Almost like they’re not human.
They come here with the idea that this is a fantasyland that only exists for their amusement and youtube channel.
This is not just here, I work in Amsterdam in a kitchen with a really open layout, and if someone asks me if they can film us I always just say “go ahead”, but I fucking hate it when they sometimes literally walk into the kitchen area to film me doing something without asking, like wtf. I’ve seen the same type of behavior in Tokyo, I wonder if it’s a recent thing because of the amount of social media content about restaurants etc, or if it’s something else
This is shit behaviour whether you’re in Tokyo, Melbourne, Montevideo, Rome, Lahore, or Shanghai. If you treat service people poorly, you’re a bad person
At my nieces school they mandate masks when on their field trip and the teachers have a sign in multiple languages to not take pictures.
I work in a matcha cafe and it’s pretty cool we do like a traditional Japanese way of making tea Infront of the clients but recently many people don’t ask and just starts recording. Not only from Infront of the counter but also like in the middle of it to get an upclose shot, one day an girl told me to repeat what I was doing because she didn’t record and the shot was not as pretty as she wished it was and I was like???? Miss I’m doing my work.
It’s getting out of hand I’m a foreigner so I’m not that concerned but my Japanese coworkers get pretty annoyed and some days I feel like my hair and makeup is not that good, so I hate when they record without asking. Usually Japanese people ask in advanced but foreigners never do
Influencers 🙄 They are a menace to society, for real. I especially hate it when they say, ‘Don’t go to this place; instead, go here because there’s no crowd,’ but the place they mentioned is actually private, . Fuck these influencers. Look at what happened to that Lawson with Mt. Fuji in the background.
I had to tell my mother in law to stop doing this when we visited. It was so embarrassing.
Always puzzled as this seems like common sense but apparently it’s not
Well, Yen deppreciated and more low quality tourists are now flocking to Japan. Its unfortunate but Japan is a budget destination now.