Japanese women who use 僕 on Twitter?

I see various women who are early-20s to early-30s post on Twitter and use 僕. To be fair, the women I follow on Twitter are local Tokyo DJs, music producers, or somehow involved in Japanese EDM or anime music.

Is the pattern of women using 僕 a Tokyo subculture thing or an online thing? Is there something nuance that I’m supposed to pick up?

3 comments
  1. It’s not unheard of for women, especially young women, to use 僕. I don’t think it’s particularly localized.

  2. I think it originally started when girls in anime or manga used 僕 as a first-person pronoun, but some girls and women not only in Tokyo but also all over Japan use it.
    You can see the word [ボク少女 in Wikipedia](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%9C%E3%82%AF%E5%B0%91%E5%A5%B3) .
    Btw my daughter, who is 15 now, uses うち for her first-person pronoun when talking with me, my husband, and her friends.

  3. At first I thought they possibly pretend to be men, to avoid mansplaining on the internet. But if the fact that they are women is public, this does not apply.

    I remember a girl in a primary school, who used boku and ore. She liked playing with boys, and possibly she wanted to be treated as an equal in boys’ community.

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