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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1011 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 3, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Anyone been using Xitter recently? The algorithm change is causing a lot of Japanese posts to show up on my feed. Further, the autotranslate has allowed for some of the most frictionless communication between Japanese and American users ever. This is the most fun I have ever had on Xitter. I urge everyone to try it while we're still in the honeymoon phase and before it gets changed.

Update: It seems that a lot of Japanese users have been getting annoyed because American Evangelicals have been proselytizing toward Japanese Twitter users. Theological debates have broken out. It seems that many Japanese people are annoyed with the holier-than-thou tone of the Evangelicals.

There was a tweet once along the lines of “Japan is Wakanda for white people”; I have to admit that I’m guilty of suffering from this view. So I can’t help but feel a sense of dismay towards this development. With the language barrier between the Anglophone internet and the Japanese internet torn down, all of the sludge from our side can freely diffuse into their previously-pristine reservoir, making one big globally-homogenized slurry. Your update sentence being an example of that.

(Of course, I need no reminder that sakoku ended a good 150 years ago, and that Japan’s culture is far from insulated from the West’s. And I don’t need any wake-up call to tell me that Japan isn’t some perfect weaboo paradise, and that its internet has plenty of its own toxicity (like “anti-“ threads). But still! There are levels to cultural connectedness.)

I agree on some level, but on the other hand, it's nice to know that true cultural exchange is still possible. I think that overall the effect will be positive.

Hopefully so. It’d be interesting to see what might come from this meeting of cultures on the Anglophone side of things in the long term. (Given that lots of 2000’s-era Anglophone internet culture was directly lifted from or inspired from the Japanese, maybe there will be a similar rebirth of creativity.)

Be the American the Japanese imagine you to be.

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I'm curious about what's so fun about it?

To be honest, it's refreshing from the normal spew of raw sewage that Xitter provides normally. The Japanese are enthusiastic about niche parts of American culture, and it's very fun to meet their enthusiasm with mine for their culture. I had a chat with some Japanese people about popular conspiracy theories in Japan. Apparently a large minority of Japanese people believe that after WWII, the royal family was replaced by other high ranking nobles who sided with America. I taught them about the reptilians that run our government and businesses.

I wouldn't say that Japanese culture is perfect, but what's on Xitter and showing up on American timelines is generally polite/respectful while also being humorous. It's a refreshing change from political outrage slop and video bait.

Even my Today's News feed is filled with "Japanese X users discover American culture." I'm so happy I was able to be here.

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