HASHTAG ACTIVISM LOST IN TRANSLATION: THE REFORMULATION OF #METOO IN JAPAN

In 2017, the #MeToo movement lit up Twitter. In Japan, however, itwas almost nonexistent and morphed into other forms of hashtag activism: #WeToo, #WithYou,and #furawademo (“flower demo”). This paper investigates both the absence of #MeToo in Japanand its reformulations. We hypothesize that these could be explained through the interplayof three avenues: (1) values—the literature on values in Japan foregrounds harmony,collectivism, and the avoidance of shame; (2) Topic—gender and sexual harassment—drawing onliterature on the rootedness of sexism in this society; (3) Platform—mounting concerns overprivacy issues on Twitter in Japan. We conducted fifteen interviews with Japanese men andwomen from varied backgrounds and assembled 119 newspaper articles that explain why peopleare reluctant to speak up. We applied a combination of grounded and thematic analysis toanalyze these samples. Our analysis affirmed that the three avenues are key to understandingthe movement’s absence and reformulation. Perceived Japanese values clash against the valuesthat respondents and newspapers detected in the movement, and the new formulations areevaluated as “softening” the protest by blending in acceptable values. However, while mostparticipants appreciated the movement, they were afraid of retaliation and isolation, giventheir perception of Japanese values. We tentatively argue that it’s not values as essentialorientations but the prevalent perceptions of popular values that limit activism. Suchperceptions of national values become self-fulfilling prophecies; people “perform” thevalues that they think others will appreciate and, in so doing, reinforce thosevalues.