I’ve listened to countless Japanese YouTube’s complain about this as well as a few of my Japanese friends who had started their new YT channels.
I mean Jesus Christ! My buddy had just made a simple daily vlog video about being a uber eats driver and he had gotten 500 dislikes and 30 hate comments with a total view count of less than 1.5k.
For all the 優しい behavior that Japanese are known for, their online activitiy seems to reflect a different reality.
Even Joey (The Animeman) had talked about this on Trash Taste.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tRmInqoFRk (Watch from: 3:47)
What do you guys think is the reason for this ?
Anyways of how to avoid this ?
P.s. I was thinking about starting a Japanese audience targeted YT channel as a foreigner, but all this seems very discouraging.
Edit: A lot of ppl are saying that they have watched Japanese YT and it’s not that bad i.e. same as anywhere in the world.
I can post quite a few examples here but that won’t add any more weight against all the other comments that are pointing out cyberbullying etc in other countries.
What I’m trying to get is an insider’s Perspective of Japanese person as to why there’s so much Japanese online Hate on YT (like ppl going out of their way to shit on videos for MONTHS after something they didn’t like about 1 specific video aka HOLDING GRUDGES on YT. They’ll even go on his other videos and leave dislikes and hateful comments).
I srsly can’t make this shit up. Please refer to Joey’s The anime man’s link above.
13 comments
I have spent a lot of time watching Japanese content on youtube and have never seen a single negative comment, so this post surprises me. One thing I would say is that I doubt it’s a Japanese phenemonen but rather just part of the package (unfortunately) of being a content creator.
To quote Mike Tyson ‘social media has made people too comfortable disrespecting people without getting punched in the face for it’.
My deduction looks like this: as a first japan is so different from the world that someone may feel ofended (idk how tho). As a second there are many people that just see anything asian and first start to shit talk about how bad anime is and has strong tendention to be extremely unfriendly. Cant thing about anything else. Also what does those comments say?
I’m not sure what you’re on about here. Simply go to any of the Top 50 Japanese youtubers’ videos and read the comments for yourself. Hate comments make for about 10% of all comments? Not even. I don’t see any more hate comments in Japanese content than in other content.
To quote Miyazaki Hayao, “social media was mistake”. But in all seriousness I think social media is pretty toxic all over the world.
I don’t know what the statistics are for Japanese YouTube in terms of hate comments. I bet Japanese people display the same level of hatefulness as other people online. But it may still be jarring because they are more reserved and indirect in real life. Online is the only place where they can share their uncensored feelings, the same as everyone else.
Because Japanese society is so focused on politeness I think they go a bit wild with the “anonymity” of the internet, can say stuff with no repercussions
Are you talking about vlogs *about* Japan by foreigners? Or vlogs about *whatever* by Japanese people?
Its really perplexing. The answer lies in Jungian shadow psychology theory I think.
I made a song with a Japanese rapper and he was rapping about keyboard hate and anger and I didn’t expect there to be such a thing in Japanese society but every light has its shadow…
> For all the 優しい behavior that Japanese are known for, their online activitiy seems to reflect a different reality.
Two sides of the same coin. It’s less compelling to act like a total jerk online if you’re allowed to do that all day anyways. Though I’ll say being an English-language creator still exposes you to a ton of vitriol, especially if you are a woman, a minority, etc.
There are also different dynamics as far as “paying your dues to other creators” (I think the same Trash Taste thing you’re talking about may have discussed that to some extent) to consider that might also make things nastier. Japan also still has stricter ideas about the conduct of celebrities, with it being a big scandal if someone’s caught using drugs or even just having sex sometimes. This greater sense of “ownership” could plausibly embolden abusive commenters.
How to avoid:
remind viewers that hate speech and bullying is NOT ok. It is in fact illegal now: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/14/asia/japan-cyberbullying-law-intl-hnk-scli/index.html
I think this is likely to vary by genre. My experience of Japanese YouTube is mostly centered around video game streamers, and I’ve only occasionally witnessed people being nasty or attempting to troll. I’ve seen a few very occasional incidents where people try to spam chat with rude words, or trolls triyng to join a streamer’s game and sabotage stuff for everyone, but it was never particularly common, and it rarely had an impact on that much.
On my own streams, people are generally quite polite, even being aware that I’m clearly foreign. I’ve been able to play games with viewers pretty easily without any incidents.
Possibly cuz of racism
The veneer of japanese civility is lost online. The formalities, smiles, and cultural/social contracts take their toll.
Online is where the kettle boils over.
As someone that occasionally leaves comments in Japanese, the replies I get back are sometimes really toxic & even if you make a genuine mistake, a lot of them just love to “correct” you in the rudest way possible & put you down to make you feel like shit.