Yokoso, YouTube! (Gray)

My prompt for this week was to become a “fan” of something. Though I am a regular at the campus conbini, I decided it would be interesting to take my research to a digital space: YouTube! In the course of my time in Japan so far I have picked up several Japanese YouTube channels that I watch regularly, though I had started watching one while I was still in the U.S. The ones I’ll be talking about, because I watch them most regularly, and have participated in their comments section, are a prank/comedy channel called SUSHI RAMEN [Riku] and a cooking/vlog network of channels run by Rachel and Jun, an American/Japanese married couple living in Japan.

Banner from Rachel and Jun's main channel, where they mostly post in English about life in Japan. Jun has a cooking channel of his own.

The general flow of consuming these videos is dependent on if a new one has been uploaded. While some channels have a more regular upload schedule, others are more scattered in their upload times. When a new video was uploaded, I would watch and comment, usually in Japanese but there were some channels with majority English comments. The content of the videos on these channels varies but I’ll give an example of a recent video by SUSHI RAMEN [Riku].

Thumbnail and description from SUSHI RAMEN [Riku]'s most recent video.

By the thumbnail and editing you can tell that he takes a lot of inspiration from Japanese comedy variety shows, with colorful subtitles in Japanese as well as general absurd video concepts, like building a slide from the front door to the living room with guitars attached to the sides so he can play a song when he comes home from his part time job. This, while patently ridiculous, is enjoyable because of [Riku]’s personality and his unique editing style. 

The majority of comments on [Riku]’s channel are in Japanese, with the occasional one-off English comments remarking on how “Japanese” his videos are. My attempts to engage in the comments were mostly in Japanese, garnering a couple likes but no replies, which I in general expected. The comments section of a Youtube video is not the best place to have conversations with other fans as there are a lot of comments and it is easy to get lost in the shuffle.

I think in future I should also ask my Japanese friends and my roommate what YouTube channels they watch, so I can watch the same things and have discussions with them from that. I was particularly interested in investigating a form of pop culture created by the individual instead of by larger companies and industries. It was interesting to see how the content on YouTube borrows from more traditional mediums like television, and the cultural specificity of those references. But all in all, I encourage my fellow students and blog readers to check out Japanese YouTube! You never know what you’ll find!