A high school girl was murdered by a man she met through an online game. Perhaps the clue to understanding this lies in the “neighborhood.” The image is of a group of young people who gather at “Toyoko” in Kabukicho, Shinjuku. Adults call them “Toyoko kids” (in a mocking tone), but the people involved call them the “Toyoko neighborhood.” In recent years, there have been repeated mass arrests at Toyoko, and the neighborhood has been dispersed. There are neighborhoods not only in the suburbs of Shinjuku, but also in Omiya, Yokohama, Nagoya, Osaka, Fukuoka, and other places. There is even a “study neighborhood” where people who study gather.
According to the Kojien dictionary, “neighborhood” means “the area around there. The surrounding area,” and refers to a specific area. In recent years, it has also come to refer to a group (community) with similar interests, tastes, and upbringing. Communities are formed by people who meet by chance at Toyoko or connect through social media.
I myself have had the experience of being addicted to some kind of community. In real life, I was fascinated by the fun of meeting strangers by chance at the “Fountain Square” formerly known as Tou Yoko. Online, I participated in the computer communication service Nifty Forum, Yahoo! JAPAN’s voice chat (Yahoo! Chat), and the SNS Mixi. Of these, I became addicted to Yahoo! Chat.

At the time, I had broken my arm while playing amateur baseball, and I was spending anxious days. I couldn’t stop worrying about whether I would really get better. During that time, I started to hang out in a room where a nurse was the “room owner” (the user who started the chat room). After that, I joined other rooms, and the “world view” and communication etiquette of that particular room became part of my daily life. When I realized this, I felt that it was having a negative impact on my real-life relationships, so I decided to leave voice chat. Fortunately, I was able to leave.

This situation continues in today’s online communities. One example is the voice chat app “Clubhouse,” which became temporarily popular during the COVID-19 pandemic. Especially after the state of emergency was declared, there were fewer opportunities to communicate with others outside, and people were starving for small talk. At first, there were many famous people and many users, but as the famous people left and the number of users decreased, the “density of relationships” increased. People began to feel a “fear” of leaving, and became curious about what kind of conversations were taking place while they were away. It’s similar to the feeling of not wanting to leave a drinking party early.
On the other hand, X is similar to Clubhouse, but because it has a large base of users, it is more likely to meet unknown users. It is also easier to find communities that deal with specific topics. The stronger your interest, the longer you will spend in that “space”. It’s like an “online neighborhood”. As a result, the density of the “world” among friends increases, and people believe that the relationships in online games are more trustworthy. However, on the other hand, a contradiction occurs in which contact with society becomes weaker.

※Translating Japanese articles into English with AI