I spent most of the weekend in shock as I digested the news of the death of Kimura Hana (木村花). The 22-year-old Japanese pro wrestler and member of the current season of the popular TV show Terrace House died in her home this weekend in an apparent suicide brought on by relentless online harassment.
Hana, sadly, is gone from us. But the impact of her death is substantial. Twitter users – both in Japan and around the world – did more than mourn Hana’s death. Many called for a fundamental shift in the way we act towards one another online. Some have vowed to sue Hana’s slanderers. And a lot of speculation swirled around the Terrace House series, with even its producers admitting it’s questionable whether the popular show can continue.
Content Warning: Discussions of suicide and self-harm follow.
Celebrities in Japan: “We’re People Too”
As of the time of this writing, Hana’s death had not been officially ruled a suicide. But she had been the target of a certain element of hate for a while – due in some part, some people say, to the fact that she’s half-Japanese (her father is Indonesian).
The hate skyrocketed, however, after an incident in the show in which Hana lost her temper towards another cast member. From that point on, she was the target of an aggressive campaign against her. Many commenters asked for her to leave the show and “never appear on TV again”.
Hana posted multiple messages to Instagram and Twitter on the night of her death indicating she was intent on harming herself. (These messages have since been deleted from her accounts. I will not publish or point to them here.) She was found initially by her mother; 10 paramedics arrived soon after and attempted to revive her. While the official cause of death has not been announced, Japan’s Bunshun Online interviewed people in Hana’s neighborhood who said they could smell gas coming from the apartment.
Sadly, the hate towards Hana didn’t even stop after her death. One YouTuber, Sakaguchi Akira, jumped on his channel after hearing the news and applauded Hana’s death, even going so far as to mock her death throes. (As of this writing, despite numerous complaints, YouTube has not removed the video or banned the channel.)
News of Hana’s death hit fans hard. It also struck home with other celebrities in Japan – many of whom know what it’s like to deal with the often brutal abuse that the public heaps on them. The discussion revolved around the Japanese word 誹謗中傷 (hibou chuushou) – “slander” or, less legalistically, “abuse.”
Model and TV personality Fujita Nicole spoke to this in a tweet that’s been liked over 220,000 times:
Being told thoughtless things by people you don’t know and can’t see – getting death threats from people you don’t know and can’t see.
Human beings are the scariest living creature.
You do this to relieve stress?‘Don’t pay attention, don’t look’
That’s the only coping strategy.
They often tell us, ‘If you become a celeb, you gotta prepare yourself for this.’That kind of thinking’s also scary.
Other Japanese celebrities spoke out along similar lines. Baseball star Yu Darvish posted a picture of a swarm of insects surrounding a young boy and said, “To those who feel they’d know how to let the occasional attack slide off their backs. This is how an attack on a celebrity feels.”
And musician Kyary Pamyu Pamyu echoed that sentiment in a short but sweet tweet: “Ignoring hate is hard. Don’t forget that celebrities are people too.”
Collecting The Rapidly Disappearing Evidence
While nothing will bring Hana back, a contingent of activists, businesspeople, and celebrities in Japan aren’t just content with doing nothing. Many have vowed to fight back. Young businesswoman Shiiki Rika, who’s Hana’s age, said that she’d use her own economic resources to launch legal proceedings against those who hounded Hana to her death:
People don’t attack someone because they hate them. They find someone it seems ok to attack, or someone everyone’s attacking. So, seeing what they did to Hana, who’s my age, I’ve decided to launch a legal battle against these comments that went too far. From here on, if I’m attacked, I’m hitting back hard.
Because of this and similar pledges, the site Bengoshi.com reports that many of the people who abused Hana online are either deleting their hate-filled tweets or, in some cases, deleting their accounts altogether. However, lawyer Shimizu Youhei told the site that this won’t protect those individuals from potential legal liability.
The key, however, will be moving quickly: In Twitter’s case, deleted accounts are soft-deleted for a month – which means it’s possible, for the time being, to ascertain the real-world identities of people who lobbed abuse at Hana.
The Fate of Terrace House
Amidst all this, a far less important yet interesting question looms: what will happen to Terrace House? The show has faced accusations in the past that it hasn’t done enough to protects its cast members. But the series has also been a rare ratings bright spot for the struggling Fuji TV.
However, it seems even “Teraha”‘s producers realize they will likely not be able to continue. A decision is expected sometime this week but producers have been quoted by news sources as saying it will be “difficult” to move forward with the show.
To me, the more interesting question is: What did those involved in Hana’s career – her wrestling group, Stardom; her talent management agency, WALK; and the producers of Terrace House – do to help her? What did they not do? As we’ve learned in past incidents like this, talent agencies in Japan often throw their stars to the wolves if it serves their own interests.
As someone who’s been the victim of cyber-bullying multiple times, this incident hits home. While I don’t want to get my hopes up, I hope this incident sparks some real change in the way we all act with one another online. And I hope that governments worldwide – not just in Japan – find ways to make it easier to hold online bullies to account for the torture they inflict on others.
In the meantime: Rest in Peace, Kimura Hana. You were beautiful. You were loved.
You are missed.
