10 Useful Japanese Internet Slang Terms You Should Know

Girl talking Japanese slang.
For Japanese learners, online Japanese can be befuddling. Here's a guide to the terms you likely won't learn from your textbooks.

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The first time you saw a Japanese conversation on Twitter, YouTube, or other websites, you might have struggled to make heads or tails of it. Google Translate probably didn’t help either.

One reason why Japanese conversations online can be so difficult to follow is the prolific use of slang on the Internet. In this article, we’ll introduce 10 useful online slang expressions to help you in your quest to learn Japanese!

1. 笑, w, and other variants

Let’s start with a classic. The equivalent of “haha” in Japanese is (笑), the kanji for laughter. This can also be written without parentheses as 笑. But just like how in English you can write “loool,” “LOL,” or “lmao,” there are also myriad ways to express laughter online in Japanese:

  • w: Short for warau (笑う, “to laugh”), this is a very common way of abbreviating 笑.
  • wwwww: Repeat w as many times as you want!
  • 草 (kusa): Because a long line of w’s looks like grass, you can also use the kanji for grass 草 to represent laughter.
  • 草生える (kusa haeru): Literally translated as “grass grows,” this is a variant of 草. You can use it as a verb, too.
  • 大草原 (daisōgen): Yet another variant of 草. 大草原 literally means “prairie,” so you could use this when something is so funny that 草 isn’t enough to express your laughter.
  • ワロタ (warota): This comes from the term 笑った (waratta, “laughed”), and it can be written in either katakana or hiragana. A further evolution of this term is ワロス (warosu).
  • 爆笑 and other alternatives: Instead of writing 笑, you can opt for more specific words like 爆笑 (bakushō, “laughing hard”) and 苦笑 (kushō, “strained laugh”). These can be used with or without parentheses.

That’s a lot of ways to express laughter, and it’s not even a complete list!

While it may be tempting to go and try out all of these online, let me first offer you a word of caution. As you might know, on the English-speaking side of the Internet, some slang terms for laughter are strongly associated with specific subcultures. Examples include “omegalul” from Twitch culture and “I’m screaming,” which I associate with certain circles on Tumblr and Twitter.

This cultural specificity is characteristic of slang in general, so naturally all the Japanese terms I introduced above also come with their own associations. 草, for instance, is often seen on the imageboard 2chan and the video-sharing site Niconico, so it may have an “online nerd” feel to it. In my opinion, the safest terms here to use are (笑)and 笑. I also recommend “w” if you’re the kind of person who uses “lol” online.

2. 垢 (account)

The Japanese word for account is アカウント (akaunto), a direct loanword from English. This is often abbreviated as アカ (aka) or 垢, also pronounced aka. The kanji 垢, which typically means “grime,” was borrowed for its sound only. This practice of borrowing kanji for their sound is called 当て字(ateji), and there many examples of ateji in the Japanese language, such as 寿司 (sushi) and 倶楽部 (kurabu, “club”). In fact, we’ll be seeing a lot more ateji used in online slang in this article!

In our official Twitter account bio, we refer to our Japanese alt account as 日本語の垢 (nihongo no aka).

There are several words that spun off from 垢 to describe different kinds of online accounts:

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  • 本垢 (hon’aka): main account
  • サブ垢 (sabuaka): alternate account (“sub account”)
  • 裏垢 (uraaka): secret account
  • 鍵垢 (kagiaka): locked account, protected account (e.g. on Twitter)

3. 鯖 (server)

Saba
サーバーは美味しいっすね。(Picture: masa / PIXTA(ピクスタ))

鯖 (saba, “mackerel”) is a well-known sushi fish, but it’s also an ateji abbreviation for サーバ (saaba, “server”). This term is especially common in the world of online games, where players can choose between different servers to play on.

FF14のチョコボ鯖でやってます。
FF14 no Chocobo saba de yattemasu.
I play Final Fantasy 14 on the server Chocobo.

A related term 鯖落ち (sabaochi) means “server down.”

昨日は鯖落ちしてプレイできなかった。
kinō wa sabaochi shite purei dekinakatta.
Yesterday, the server went down so I couldn’t play.

4. エゴサ (searching for oneself on the Internet)

エゴサーチ (egosaachi), or エゴサ (egosa) for short, comes from the English word “egosearch,” and it refers to the act of searching for oneself online.

[Context: On Twitter]
◯◯さんからいいねきた!エゴサしてるのかな?
◯◯san kara iine kita! egosa shiteru no kana?
◯◯ liked my post! Were they searching for their own name?

5. 乙 (thanks, good game, etc.)

If you’re a Japanese learner, you’ve likely come across the phrase お疲れ様 (otsukaresama). This phrase is a standard greeting used at the end of a shared activity (e.g. at work, in an co-op online game) or to thank someone for their hard work.

In a casual setting, you can shorten お疲れ様 to おつ (otsu), and online this is often written with ateji as 乙.

皆さん、乙です!
minasan, otsu desu!
Great work, everyone! / Good game, all!

6. うp (upload)

うp is an abbreviation of the word “upload.” Although the standard way to say “upload” is to use the loanword アップロード (appurōdo), the slang term うp is the result of typing “up” with a Japanese keyboard.

動画ができた!今日うpします
dōga ga dekita! kyō up shimasu
I finished the video! Gonna upload today

Additionally, うp主 (upnushi) means “uploader.” Another common slang expression combines うp and 乙 to create うp乙, which means “thanks for the upload.” Some people even write うぽつ (upotsu), which merges the words even further.

7. 禿同 (strongly agree)

Strongly agree
Picture: hirost / PIXTA(ピクスタ)

禿同 (hagedō) is short for 激しく同意 (hageshiku dōi), which means “I strongly agree.” This pattern of abbreviating an expression by taking the first two syllables is common in the Japanese language. For instance, the word 就活 (shūkatsu, “job hunting”) is an abbreviation of the longer 就職活動 (shūshoku katsudō).

What is unusual about 禿同, however, is the replacement of 激 (forceful) with the kanji 禿 (bald). The alternative abbreviation 激同 does see use, but 禿同 is more common—probably because it’s just funnier!

[Context: In a reply to something]
そうそう!禿同です!
sō! hagedō desu!
Yeah! I totally agree!

8. 尼 (Amazon)

Yet another ateji! 尼 (ama) originally means “nun,” but some Japanese folks online have adopted it as an abbreviation for Amazon.

尼で買ったやつが届いた
ama de katta yatsu ga todoita
The thing I bought off Amazon arrived

I’ve also seen people write 米尼 (beiama), which is short for 米アマゾン (bei amazon, “US Amazon”).

9. 炎上 (drawing massive criticism online)

炎上 (enjō) literally means “to go up in flames,” but online it describes the situation where someone, or something, receives a storm of negative attention online.

あの政治家はツイートが炎上して垢に鍵つけてしまった。
ano seijika wa tsuiito ga enjō shite aka ni kagitsukete shimatta.
That politician made a Tweet that got a ton of backlash and they ended up locking their account.

10. ggrks (just f**kin google it)

The final entry on this list is a fun one! You won’t see it much—not to mention, it’s quite rude—but it’s a fascinating expression.

So why does this seemingly random clump of letters mean “just f**kin google it”? Well, ggrks is actually short for ググレカス (gugure kasu). ググレ is the imperative form of the word ググる (guguru, “to Google”), while カス is a general insult that roughly translates to “scum.” By taking the first letter in each of the syllables of ググレカス, we get “ggrks”!

There are actually a number of slang expressions composed using initials like this, such as “kwsk” from 詳しく (kuwashiku, “tell me the details”) and “tkmk” from ときめき (tokimeki, “heart-pounding”). However, many of these expressions are ephemeral and quickly fall in and out of use.

Conclusion

Hope you enjoyed this survey of online Japanese slang expressions! This is, of course, just the tip of the iceberg. For those who want to explore further into the world of online slang, numan.tokyo (JP link) is a great resource.

This monthly blog post series by Wes Robertson, a researcher in Japanese sociolinguistics, is another fantastic read. He breaks down and explains trending slang terms using examples from the wild.

But if you’re looking for more slang-related content from Unseen Japan, we’ve got you covered too! Next time, we’ll introduce useful online slang terms found on social media.

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