Netto-uyoku

Netto-uyoku or Net uyoku (ネット右翼, Japanese Internet rightists), often shortened as Netouyo (ネトウヨ), is the term used to refer to Japanese neo-nationalists who interact and post almost entirely online on forums and social media sites, described as a "new breed of neo-nationalists who interact almost entirely within their own cyber community, shut off from the rest of society" by Japanese critic and writer Furuya Tsunehira in a nippon.com article. Furuya further expounds "the average age of Japan’s Internet right-wingers is around 40. Some 75% of them are male, and they are concentrated in major urban areas, particularly the Tokyo-Kanagawa region. Their average annual income is slightly higher than the median for their age, and most are graduates of four-year universities." This profile is in contrast to European and American ultra-rightist groups who are mostly made up of disaffected low-income and unemployed youth.[1][2] Furuya further observes that although active on the web, they lack institutional political representation offline, leading to a sense of frustration and a tendency to be more active online and to back the more right-wing elements of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, especially Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's administration as a substitute for having a party of their own.

Origins

Netto-uyoku first appeared on the Internet during the Lost Decade, which was an economic crisis in Japan from the 1990s to 2010s.[3]

Views

Netto-uyoku generally express support for historically revisionist views, portraying Imperial Japan in a positive light, juxtaposed with a negative portrayal of China (anti-Chinese sentiment), who frequently finds itself in conflict with Japan over political, military, and territorial issues along with issues of differences of historical perception particularly in regards to Japanese actions prior to and during WWII, and North and South Korea. Netto-uyoku support visits by politicians to Yasukuni Shrine, where about 2.5 million Japanese men, women, and children who died for their country are enshrined.[4] Visits to the shrine are often met with censure by China & South Korea due to a perception that it signifies a lack of deep enough remorse on Japans part for its wartime actions. They tend to express hostility towards immigrants from countries that have conflicts with Japan. The netto-uyoku also express heavy criticism against the domestic left and centrist parties, such as the Democratic Party of Japan, and the "liberal" mass media.[5]

See also

References
  1. "Xenophobia finds fertile soil in web anonymity".
  2. "The Roots and Realities of Japan's Cyber-Nationalism".
  3. "Internet Nationalism in Contemporary Japan as a Digitally Mediated Subculture".
  4. "Japan's Yasukuni Shrine". BBC News. 2012-10-18. Retrieved 2020-11-26.
  5. "Internet Aggregators Constructing the Political Right Wing in Japan".
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