Streaming is something I‘ve always considered trying out as a hobby, and I’ve come across several current JETs with monetized YouTube channels and even Patreon. I don’t expect to make a lot of money from that sort of hobby but I’d still like to be able to monetize it and I’ve always wondered how people who presently do that go about it without getting in hot water, because the last thing I’d want is to get deported if I were to do that during JET.
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Don’t talk about it at work and don’t have the money go into your Japanese account. Ez.
I really doubt you’d get deported over that though.
There was a [case](https://japantoday.com/category/national/firefighter-docked-pay-for-making-over-a-million-yen-from-game-streaming) maybe a year ago where a Fire Fighter was anonymously streaming as a hobby and making a tidy sum of cash on the side. Somehow it got out that was doing this and it became national news because public employees having side income is a big no no in Japan. It basically runs afoul of anti-corruption regulations. The guy ended up getting forced to issue a public apology, close down his channel, and got his pay docked. It did spark some debate that maybe anti-corruption regulations should be updated, but didn’t result in any real change.
So would work find out about YouTube Channel? Probably not. Would they be upset if they found out you were profiting from it? Almost definitely.
I personally haven’t seen JET’s with monetized Youtubes/patreons, but if they’re doing that they’re basically just playing with fire and hoping work never finds out