One of the recently popular threads on the Japanese tweet compilation site Togetter.com was a series of tweets by a Japanese blogger called Jiragyo, who commented on who the netouyo are really angry at.
The term ‘netouyo’ itself is used frequently in the Japanese media, by Japanese netizens, and also crops up a lot on japanCRUSH. Jiragyo’s tweets give an interesting perspective on the issue, suggesting that the real problem is domestic. Jiragyo’s tweets are translated in full below, along with netizen comments on the netouyo.
From Togetter.com:
Who do the netouyo want to get back at?
The Twitter profile of the Japanese blogger Jiragyo.
Jiraygyo:
I want to say something about the older generation who make fun of the cries of ‘Long live Japan!’ and the lack of consideration for other countries from young netouyos. At the very least, the generation who became adults during the bubble era ransacked the culture of other countries with their money, seeing ‘Japan as number one’, and saying ‘There’s nothing we can learn from the world’, so they’re in no position to criticize.
Jiraygyo:
The netouyo, and those bastards from the bubble era themselves, are basically made of the same stuff, I mean, in the end, there’s not much difference between the generations (笑)
Jiraygyo:
What’s more, well, the bakumatsu [late Edo period] and postwar Japan [as periods of foreign influence] were exceptional, but at times when it’s seemed like Japan is going to be engulfed by the civilisation and culture of a foreign country, Japan rolls up its sleeves, saying ‘Who cares about your country, you’re no big deal’ — even if forced. And I think that’s necessary, actually, since it’s easy for a country to be engulfed by another culture and then bend to suit them. Even with China and Korea, we have to have power.
Jiraygyo:
In a recession, because economists and sociologists always carry on about ‘globalisation, globalisation’, and incite us to continue losing our identities, there’s bound to be a reaction against that. I think that fundamentally the netouyo’s attitudes are strongly rooted in disbelief and opposition to this, rather than opposition to China and Korea.
Jiraygyo:
And so, when the economic climate improves and employment is stable, I suppose that everyone will just make families and get buried in their work as usual, but because far from helping with economic recovery, economists, sociologists and the media are just hindering it, I think that it will get to the point where people are saying ‘Death to the intelligentsia, and down with China and Korea, the nations they praised!’
Jiraygyo:
I think that the people the netouyo really want to kill are not Chinese or Koreans, but the ‘the kind of Japanese who pretend to be intellectuals’ (笑) And the spears are already pointing at them.
Jiraygyo:
Perhaps, if we asked the people we call netouyo, then they’d almost certainly say the same thing. That they ‘despise the traitorous media, scholars, and politicians rather than Chinese and Koreans’. And that’s how it is. We can say that for sure (笑)
Jiraygyo:
But I think that the media really would prefer that the netouyo attacked China and Korea rather than them (笑)
Jiraygyo:
Contrary to what you’d expect, the more that Abe incites them by talking about reconciliation policies with Korea, the reason the netouyo don’t respond is that already they want to destroy newspapers, television channels, and municipal groups, rather than China and Korea, that’s just completely obvious.
Comments from Twitter:
Seto_yasu1987:
I see, it’s like domestic trouble, rather than foreign threat.
Ting2012
Yup, I completely agree with this.
vis_on_tweet:
I strongly agree. They’re fed up of having the self-satisfied ideals of intellectuals imposed on them, and of being labelled as people who object to it.
togetoge10:
I think I might be able to understand it if it was a reaction to left-wing thought, but I didn’t quite see it simply as an objection to the media and the intelligentsia.
seijimatome:
It’s because they’re a generation who don’t know about the bubble era( ・∀・)つ〃∩ ﾍｪｰﾍｪｰﾍｪｰ So it seems as netouyo, they despise the media. They’ve realised that politicians (LDP) are not as insincere as they were said to be by the media, so they’ve lost momentum. The DPJ is fiction.
AerospaceCadet:
So, what the hell is this netizen treating people as enemies for, saying ‘those bastards from the bubble generation themselves’. Are they trying to start a war between the generations? Fine, give it a try.
France_syoin:
Everybody wants to be accepted by someone. And if you can’t be accepted for doing something good, then you want them to accept you for doing something bad. If you can be accepted by being conspicuous, then you’re going to stick with that. It’s just that in reality there are a lot of people who were accepted by their family and are now accepted by 2ch. So there’s no philosophy to it, it’s just a distorted way of wanting to be liked.
sicilian_ 3:
I think that the main trend is still hating Korea and hating China, though. The funny thing is that they don’t attack the US. Although people get pissed if a trend of hatred becomes only slightly popular, they’re not concerned about becoming a vassal state (although the US supplies us with troops, they also budget for it thoughtfully).
akatuki_no_mori:
This kind of content is appearing all the time, but all of them are saying different things. I think of it very simply, and not in defence of the netouyo. On one hand, you have ‘Anti-Korea anti-China’ netouyo. On the other hand, you have ‘Anti-Japan media, hate traitorous Diet members’ netouyo. Then you also have ‘Pro-US’ netouyo. Isn’t the word ‘netouyo’ itself now meaningless?
Halfriceset:
So reading this far, all I’ve understood is that the word ‘netouyo’ is confirmed as a derogatory word, a swear word, and a discriminatory word.
ocelot33:
A netouyo is someone who reacts the most quickly to news about China and Korea, and in spite of hating them, understands the languages and cultures of China and Korea really well, and even when they’re asleep dreams of China and Korea.
kz8500:
It’s just that the voices who say, ‘Japan can’t just stay as the country that lost the war’ — to borrow from Kurayama Mitsuru’s speech — have grown louder. A reaction against the masochistic view of history that was prevalent, will continue for a while.
kamille_a:
There are some things that I agreed with, but we can’t have a struggle between the generations. Our common enemy are the old intellectual class and the media.
R_Kobayashi:
To me, the sound of the word ‘netouyo’ and ‘netizen’ are kind of the same.
lm700j:
Maybe by the word ‘netouyo’, we can’t really express things properly, and the struggle between generations is also not a complete generalization. I’m not sure, but there must be a better word to express this.
sitimito:
These comments are full of phrases like ‘I think’ and ‘maybe’, aren’t they…?
