With around 2.3 billion monthly active users, YouTube is a uniquely massive video ecosystem. The sheer volume of content uploaded daily allows for innumerable unique subcultures and genres to blossom on the platform, from makeup tutorials to food blogs, to gaming channels and children’s programming. Amongst all these, the comedy genre draws many to the site, with popular creators wracking up millions of subscribers. For new creators looking to break into that overcrowded scene, early virality is often the goal; but more eyes on your content isn’t always a good thing, especially when many find that content despicable. Harassing women, it turns out, isn’t exactly a good YouTube look.
Such was the lesson assumedly learned this month by small YouTube comedy channel “Okosamaranchi.” Based out of the Naniwa area of Osaka, the group describes themselves thusly:
今のYouTubeの現状にうんざりした4人が 関西を拠点としてネットで好き勝手するチャンネルです。
Translation: “We’re a channel based in Kansai made up of four people who are fed up with the current state of YouTube. We do whatever we please on the internet.”
In early August, it seems that “doing whatever we please” meant tormenting random women on the streets of Osaka.
“Humor” from Random Harassment
On August 2nd, the group uploaded a new video breathlessly entitled 「【神回】街中に居る女の子に『A○で見た人だ！』と叫んでみたらwwww」. In English, that’s “[Incredible Episode] We LOLOLOL when we try yelling at girls around town that ‘You’re that person I saw in that p*rn video.'” Brevity, it seems, is not the soul of wit to the boys at Okosamaranchi. Rather, what they envisioned as good humor is to approach random, unknown women simply going about their business, and to yell the following at them:
「Pornhubに出てた人や！」
“You’re that person who was on Pornhub!”
「Pornhubに出てたかたですよね？」
“Aren’t you that individual who appeared on Pornhub?”
The group members also found other ways to bother the subjects of their “pranks,” throwing themselves down on the road in front of the target women and obstructing their passage. Adding insult to injury, the group also failed to pixelate the faces of the prankees, something which would be common practice for this sort of video. So, not only did the women in question, merely going about their days, experience having random men falsely announce to the world around them that they were adult video actresses, they also had their faces uploaded to the internet at large without their permission.
The Wrong Sort of Publicity
Surely, Okosamaranchi did not expect the video to receive much noticeable backlash. After all, at the time of the video’s posting their channel sat at a relatively small 3k subscribers; previous videos had mostly wracked up views only in the single thousands. Their previous videos also hardly give the impression that respecting women was foremost on the group’s mind. Titles included “[Number of Partners] LOL It was way too crazy when we tried to guess how many people a hot girl had been with, and the number was unbelievable [Sex Count Bingo]”; “[Shock] Just how far will sexually frustrated high school girls let us go in a locked photo booth?!”; “[One Night] The unbelievable result of asking high school girls in Naniwa ‘which of us three do you want to f*ck?!'”
In other words, their target audience wasn’t exactly one that cared much about putting women in uncomfortable situations. However, it seems that the one thing content creators most seek — or fear — occurred. The video took off, although not for the desired reasons. As the views came in, so did the heated criticisms. For a channel unused to this degree of attention, much less public ire, the barrage proved too much. The group deleted the video from YouTube, seemingly consigning it to oblivion.
Apologetic Motions
Then, on August 7th, an apology video appeared in the offending video’s place. The upload, entitled 「今回の不適切な動画の件について」(“Regarding the Recent Incident of the Inappropriate Video”), clocks in at only 1 minute 53 seconds long. In it, three of the four members crouch in a formal shazai (apology) stance, hands on knees, bedecked in matching white shirts and dark slacks – a far cry from their usual informal wear. Group leader Sora starts off the apologetics:
“We here at Okosamaranchi would like to humbly apologize for the inappropriate video we uploaded some days ago. We truly apologize… Unaware that what we were planning was wrong, we carelessly put our ideas into action.” Sora also specifically mentions that he only deleted the offending video upon the request of a female friend who appeared in it. The apology ends with an acknowledgment of the women they’d bothered and the problems they’d caused their fans.
However, the text description for “Regarding the Recent Incident” includes the following coda: 「また、明日から毎日投稿をさせていただきます。」
“Also, we’ll be uploading daily starting tomorrow.”
A Lesson Learned?
Needless to say, commentators in Japan were less than convinced of the group’s remorseful sincerity. As of this writing, the apology video has accrued 7.9 thousand dislikes — to a mere 95 likes.
Scathing retorts proliferated on the video’s comments section. As news media began picking up the story, Twitter comments were equally negative:
“They say they’re going to be uploading again tomorrow… Are they really feeling any regret?”
“You know, they may be saying ‘we didn’t realize what we were doing was wrong, and we’re sorry.’ But in the end, they don’t touch on why it was wrong, do they?
So, they’re apologizing because they were told to apologize. If they don’t know what about their actions was wrong, they’re just going to end up repeating the same pattern.
Not that I had any idea who these people were before today.”
In response to the above comment, user @wildfunasea said:
“You’re so right in that they haven’t touched on what you’re discussing.
Their thought process is like that of an elementary schooler’s.”
A Big Scandal for a Small Channel
In truth, by itself, this seems a fairly flash-the-pan controversy. The comedy quartet in question is essentially made up of unknowns; visibly young, the group only officially formed on June 27th, mere weeks before this social media scandal. While their actions are clearly, even embarrassingly, wrongheaded and harmful, it’s easy to question what makes their story particularly noteworthy.
Indeed, a commentator on their apology video pointed out the disconnect between the surging social media ire and the target’s lack of prominence:
“It’s incredible that you could stir up this much controversy without even having 5000 subs.”
Conversely, scandals usually seem to erupt over the reprehensible actions purposefully portrayed and uploaded by popular YouTubers; the case of Logan Paul’s filming of the dead body of a suicide victim in Japan’s Aokigahara forest springs to mind. Such YouTubers with massive followings model unscrupulous behavior, using pranks and shocking public shenanigans to draw in their virtual crowds. Viewers see these content creators as aspirational — and mimick their bad behavior in turn. Social media can even reward controversies; for example, none of Okosamaranchi’s videos even come close to the viewcount amassed by their apology video.
Consent and Consideration
These issues are far from new or unique to Japan; they represent the problems of fame-seeking brought on by mass social media. Still, the video in question isn’t just being singled out for bad public behavior. Rather, there’s the overtly sexual nature of the harassment in question, aimed at embarrassing women going about their daily lives and forcing sexual conceptions onto them in public.
Much of Okosamaranchi’s content seems to revolve around similar ideas; asking random women about sexual encounters or focusing on related topics. In a country where a huge percentage of women report experiencing sexual harassment — including high school girls, 61% of whom report “regularly seeing or experiencing sexual harassment“, and who are the subject of some of the group’s videos — it’s both shocking and sadly unsurprising that no one in Okosamaranchi perceived the issues with what they were doing.
Sex-Ed in Japan remains rudimentary; TV and social media are often a preferred source for education. Understanding of consent is often low. Japanese women complain of how their institutions fail them. Women-only train cars are implemented as a gesture at making women feel safe during their commute, since trains are a common location where chikan (molesters) like to lay in wait. Sadly, the everyday reality of the harassment experienced by women across Japan often means little to those who do not directly experience it.
The pull of social media and a chronic lack of awareness can then easily combine into the thoughtless and egregious actions of those like the comedy group in question. Okosamaranchi, at least, appear to have the benefit of youth on their side. Perhaps they really will learn something from all this. But then again, is that something their ecosystem will really allow for?
A special thanks to @808Towns for directing us to this story.
