It’s just scientific fact that they love being slaves to corporations unlike us, the proudly independent and individualistic Westerners smuglord

Source: I was on a Discord with a Japanese dude

  • ChaosMaterialist [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    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 no-fun-allowed dweebs are absolutely everywhere.

    • GinAndJuche@hexbear.net
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      9 months ago

      When people drop the noun meant to follow the adjective they are almost always telling on themselves about something, in this case racism

      • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        9 months ago

        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

        • GinAndJuche@hexbear.net
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          9 months ago

          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.

          • zed_proclaimer [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            9 months ago

            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.

            • alcoholicorn [comrade/them, doe/deer]@hexbear.net
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              9 months ago

              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.

    • arabiclearner [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      9 months ago

      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.

        • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          9 months ago

          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?

          • doublepepperoni [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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            9 months ago

            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

            • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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              9 months ago

              “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

  • WhyEssEff [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    using google like a social media website and furiously typing in “emulator illegal” into the search bar to make my voice heard

  • Tankiedesantski [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    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.

    • Umechan [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      9 months ago

      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.

          • chungusamonugs [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            9 months ago

            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.

  • Umechan [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    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.

  • BurgerPunk [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    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

  • AsLeftAsTheyCome [they/them, any]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    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.

    • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      9 months ago

      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?

      • AsLeftAsTheyCome [they/them, any]@hexbear.net
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        9 months ago

        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.

      • doublepepperoni [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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        9 months ago

        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

  • SnowySkyes [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    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.

    • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      9 months ago

      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.

        • CarbonScored [any]@hexbear.net
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          9 months ago

          Agreed. Some countries have a word specifically for a person from their country. But if you’re just using the adjective, it’s weird.

          • ProfessorOwl_PhD [any]@hexbear.net
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            9 months ago

            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.

            • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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              9 months ago

              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”

              • ProfessorOwl_PhD [any]@hexbear.net
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                9 months ago

                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.

                • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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                  9 months ago

                  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!)”

  • BynarsAreOk [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    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.

    • AsLeftAsTheyCome [they/them, any]@hexbear.net
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      9 months ago

      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.

      • charly4994 [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        9 months ago

        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.