It's just scientific fact that they love being slaves to corporations unlike us, the proudly independent and individualistic Westerners
Source: I was on a Discord with a Japanese dude
I had once wanted to do a private film streaming within my own private Discord server, but a japanese in the group objected to it, saying that Discord TOS did not allow us to stream films, and if we did that would be piracy.
I encounter plenty of anti-piracy nerds day-to-day. What makes this dude so special it warrants handwaving their whole country? My brother complained about piracy for a time I downloaded a movie to watch in a place without broadband. I finally bought a digital copy on Google Play just to shut him up about it.
These
dweebs are absolutely everywhere.
When people drop the noun meant to follow the adjective they are almost always telling on themselves about something, in this case racism
What? This is the stupidest shit ever lol. How is this racist? If referring to someone as “an American” or “a Kenyan” or “a French” is not racist, why would saying “a Japanese” be any different? Japanese is literally the noun and adjective depending on how you want to use it just like any other demonym
It’s not inherently rascist, I should have took more care in my phrasing.
What I meant was: people who who drop the person or personhood identifier in favor of national/racial/other sorts of identifiers are often those who engage in broad strokes judgements based on origin.
A key part of English, at least based on my understanding of it, is the clear delineation between person and non-person. Removing that reference to personhood by simply using an adjective of origin is closer to calling them an “it” than otherwise.
That’s just my read on the topic though, I’m welcome to hearing otherwise because this could be an interesting convo.
it also just depends on the word for some reason, english is very vibes based and inconsistent in its rules and connotations.
A Greek
sounds decently normal
A Kenyan
seems fine
An Egyptian
commonly said
A Chinese
This sounds weird and bad. Couldn't tell you why but it just sounds racist compared to the other ones.
I think any -ese demonym can't be turned into a noun without sounding off.
Yeah, turns out the lingual patterns my grampa used to refer to Chinese and Japanese people is not great, in 2024.
edit: To be clear, he used different slurs, he wasn't so racist as to use the same slur for Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Laoceans, and island people.
Seconded. "My black friend" is what racists say instead of "my friend"
That guy shouldn't have said that but I see plenty of Japanese people who are fairly fluent in English say things like "As a Japanese" or "I am a Japanese and I..." It appears in quite a few youtube comments and other social media comments from what I've seen. They'll also say it out loud in interviews and stuff.
It's technically correct as a noun for a Japanese person, like "a German" or "an Italian." It just sounds weirdly antiquated and kinda racist in modern day.
What's racist about it though? Like isn't just because most people that would say "I met a japanese" are the same people who use the words "a female" when they talk about women? Is there anything actually racist in the phrasing itself, that makes it different from referring to other nationalities?
Like someone else said, the vibes are just off in a way I can't quite articulate.
"A German" sounds okay but "a Japanese" or "a Chinese" just don't without a "person" or some other word after them
"A German" sounds okay but "a Japanese" or "a Chinese" just don't without a "person" or some other word after them
Oh well that's easy. That's because the chinese are people, while the germans aren't
crackers love to argue you with in cyberspace that blocking ads is immoral
Source: I was on a Discord with a Japanese dude
ShowAhh the Japanese!
using google like a social media website and furiously typing in "emulator illegal" into the search bar to make my voice heard
Anyone who thinks Japanese people always follow rules should take a short drive on the highway system, especially in Tokyo where doing 80 in a 50 zone is extremely common. Afterwards they can drive the surface roads and count the number of illegally parked cars illegally idling with engines on.
Yes. I spent some time living in northern Kanto, which is famous for its car dependancy, and absolutely everyone drove 20-40 KPH above the limit. Sixty KPH (which is generally the highest speed limit outside of highways) is equivalent to around 37 MPH, so I don't blame them.
37 MPH
having your entire society at school zone speeds
Wtf, school zone speeds are 10-20 mph in most countries and people mostly follow this.
The American in a suburban assault vehicle cannot be asked to slow down for anything or anyone. Some of this is the fact that even short drives in the US are usually at least 30 minutes, so people are always in a rush to get places. I think the other half is that Americans just like being violent psychopaths.
But only for those that keep to the speed limits. Plenty of people drove at 80-100 KPH when I commuted by car.
I've never understood this particular kind of "Daddy Nintendo please notice me!" corporate bootlicking. Nintendo is a shitty company that does shitty anti-consumer things all the time, they just also make good games. These people act like if you ever criticise nintendo in any way shape or form the flow of treats will cease so we must never say anything negative about them. With the guy above tossing in a bit of Orientalism as well.
"Sir, do you not understand that STEALING is wrong and unethical no matter who you steal from?"
- Show
エミュレーター 違法 is now only the 4th auto-complete suggestion. The first is エミューレーターとは (What is an emulator?) I guess there's been a sudden surge of lawlessness in Japan.
Right below "Emulator illegal" is "Emulator recommendation" lmao.
And "emulator game console" right below that, and "emulator download" at the bottom
"I'm just googling the recommended emulators and how to download them so that I don't accidentally violate my moral convictions by downloading one"
I'm pretty sure there's some variant of "are emulators illegal" in search engine auto completes no matter what language you search in.
Actually google's autocomplete is a window into the gestalt consciousness of the yamato race
Citing a gigacorporation to prove how not-brainwashed-by-gigacorps I am
I mean, a lot of people probably do search "are emulators illegal" before they become "they're for my backup copies
"
As someone who has played a couple Yakuza games, i consider myself very familiar with Japanese culture. Most people's days involve getting in random fist fights while walking between caberet clubs, restaurants, Club SEGA arcades, underground cage fighting arenas, and karaoke joints
Japanese people don't go to a hospital after getting brutally beat up in a street fight, they just eat some yakisoba and feel a lot better.
Yup. Also, the real estate business is super easy. Mostly just about beating people up, and hiring peoole you've met in your adventures. Yeah, getting into adventures randomly as you're walking around is super common over there. Its part of their culture
Those games are so fun. You'll just be walking down the street and some guy is like 'I'M GONNA KILL THIS DOG FOR NO REASON'. Then you kick his ass and smash a neon sign over his head.
but a Japanese in the group
When someone uses $ethnicity without the word person or equivalent following it up, you can just feel the racism oozing from their very soul.
I would argue against you by pointing out that plenty of users here talk about "an italian" or "a brit" or whatever, but then that would require me to recognize the italians and british as people.
I don't know there are just some that sound weird and stilted like that: a spanish, for example.
a spanish, for example
I think people would more commonly say "a spaniard." I'm happy Spanish people are white because otherwise it would sound super racist
Agreed. Some countries have a word specifically for a person from their country. But if you're just using the adjective, it's weird.
It's not about the adjective, it's about the suffix - adjectives ending in -n are considered normal (an american, a german, a paraguayan), but adjectives ending in -ese are considered to sound weird and need a "person" adding afterwards (a chinese, a congolese, a portuguese).
For once I'm pretty sure this isn't a racism thing, just an "the english language is a fucking mess made up of more exceptions than rules" thing.
I think the weirdness comes from the fact that words ending in -ese are both singular and plural, while you need to add an -s as a suffix for other nationalities.
"That chinese is riding a bike" / "the Chinese are riding bikes" vs "that German is riding a bike" / "the Germans are riding bikes"There we go, you see it in "a Dutch" and "an Irish" too, because they're singular and plural, and don't see it in stuff like "a Pole" or "a Scot" because they have a different plural form.
Guess I was wrong, for once it is an actual rule.Who knows if its an actual rule though? I think -ese can be singular as well as plural, so it should be fine, but it sounds wack. Maybe it's a rule like "I before E, except after C (weird!)"
but a Japanese in the group objected
This phrasing kinda has similar vibes to someone insistently calling trans people “the transgenders.” It’s such a weird, petty way to signal bigotry and ignorance.
I thought so too, but then I sort of realised that it's pretty normal "a german, a frenchman and a swede walks into a bar" doesn't sound weird. Nor does "I met an american yesterday, they were very loud".
"A japanese" still looks weird and signals weirdo energy, but it shouldn't. I wonder why?That’s a fair point!
I think it could be the -ese at the end. “A chinese” has the same weird vibe whereas “a korean” sounds better, so I don’t think it’s (necessarily) the history of bigotry against East Asians that makes it sound off.
To me, the -ese ending kinda implies that the speaker is referencing a group. Words ending in -ese seem to lean more plural by default and using them to refer to singular individuals feels off, at least in my opinion. English is a very strange language though and I could very easily be wrong.
Yeah I think it's the -ese too. I thought it was wrong to use for a person in singular, but apparently not for all nationalities. English is all vibes.
You're on to something. If I said 'i was talking to a Lebanonese', it sounds kinda off, but 'i was talking to an Iraqi, an Afghan, Palestinian' sounds fine.
You also can't pluralize -ese words without adding "people", while you can make the other ones plural with just an "s". Very inconvenient. English is weird.
well I remember my grandma saying similar things but shortening Japanese to 3 letters... my grandpa was in WW2 and she never let go of that hatred
This is also exactly the way someone who speaks japanese natively would talk in english as it’s a direct translation.
It's less that it's a direct translation and more that a natively Japanese person isn't likely to be aware of the vaguely racist vibes "a Japanese" has to a native English speaker
There is no word that means just "Japanese" in Japanese. 日本人 specifically means Japanese person and is just the words Japan and person smashed together
Dude 100% watched youtube history videos and anime and concluded he knew everything
Yes that was a cringe comment so who knows if the story is true.
But regarding the point over piracy it is not entire impossible, you know Japan is one of the places where they will criminaly persecute people for piracy and I totaly understand, specialy if you're not particularly tech savvy, someone become paranoid over being put into some random criminal "investigation" for watching pirated shit on Discord.
The part about "Japanese culture" aside, the discord story is plausible to me as pathetic as it sounds.
Yeah, Japan's copyright laws fucking suck ass and I can't blame anyone living there for sweating about getting caught in their sham of a criminal justice system
I’ve had so many weebs try to tell me that Japan doesn’t give a shit about copyright laws based solely on the way the names of certain stands from JoJo’s bizarre adventure had to be localized in the west lol.
I think it stems more from how a lot of companies turn a bit of a blind eye towards fan creations when in reality it'd just be far more damage to their public image going after stuff for close to no actual gain. Though from rumors I've heard the Yakuza connected with horse racing were making threats towards people that drew the girls from Uma Musume naked which is kinda funny TBH.