Make Believe Bonus: The World Wants A "Convenient Japan" (Newspicks)

Alternative Title — Medium Rare: The City-Pop-Ification Of Japan Online

Remember when X rolled out a new auto-translate feature, with Japanese being the first language being AI-assisted into something the world could understand? And it lead to…well, whatever this was.

The speed of social media today means that this online connection forged by brisket feels like ancient history as May 2026 comes into view, but the whole happening had me fascinated for a variety of reasons. It also had me feeling queasy because it tied into a lot of negative views about the internet this year that — especially as this played out — relate to how pretty much every website approaches anything related to Japan.

I would be lying if I said I tried to avoid it — I probably spent at least one afternoon looking at Noah Smith’s profile far more than anyone ever should — but it was the sort of trend that made me feel burned out after like two days. I initially also wondered…is there anything actually to this? Am I just wasting my time?

The answer was still “yes,” but when my editor at Newspicks approached me to dig into it, I did start picking at it a bit more and realized this episode was far more telling about the state of how the world sees Japan than I initially thought.

My article about it went up today, and you can read the original Japanese version here. Below is the original English draft for it, though as I do with all stories shared on the paywalled Newspicks, I too am putting it for paid subscribers. New this time, though, I also have added a few additional thoughts that have swirled around since I submitted this.