A Japanese weekly ran a story about a Japanese YouTuber living in Taiwan who spat night-market food out on camera, said he hated Taiwan, and then put "To the low-class people of Taiwan" on the thumbnail of his explanation video. I read all 750 comments underneath. The thirty-five comments that use his name carry 52.0 per cent of all the hmm presses in the thread. The comments asking for the platform to be fixed hold 5.4 per cent of the vote
I began by saying I have no idea who watches this. Of 750 comments, thirty-five — 4.7 per cent — name him. Those thirty-five carry 52.0 per cent of the thread's hmm presses. The people who watch him were here all along.
How the votes fell
Ranked by upvotes. Left of the slash is agree, right is disagree. This is where the resentment actually sits.
- 1st 2847 ∕ 110 Watching this is shameful as a Japanese person. Calling food bad is your own business; spitting it out, saying you hate Taiwan, and then taunting people after the backlash with a line about low-class Taiwanese is something else entirely. He lives in Taiwan, makes his videos about Taiwan, runs a shop there. He takes all that from the place, and when criticised he goes after Taiwanese people's standards. The one-star reviews and personal abuse thrown at his shop by people who never ate there are obviously wrong — but that being wrong and the criticism of his own conduct are two separate things. Calling it a frank opinion does not settle everything
- 2nd 2781 ∕ 99 Food is a country's culture. Some countries eat caterpillars and find them creamy and good; some eat snails. Plenty of visitors to Japan cannot face natto. Good and bad taste is a matter of the senses, and often of what you ate as a child. Not many countries eat raw fish either. Respecting another country's culture matters
- 3rd 1714 ∕ 422 I watch his YouTube a lot, and he has always been like this. He says plainly that good things are good and bad things are bad, and he has been saying he dislikes night markets for years. Anyone who watches his videos can tell he definitely loves Taiwan — otherwise he would not live there. He is extremely useful to Japanese people planning a trip to Taiwan
- 4th 1526 ∕ 67 Taiwan's night markets are a food culture that represents the country; buying at a stall is easier and cheaper than cooking, so a great many people use them. The taste may not have suited him, but filming yourself swearing at it and spitting it out amounts to picking a fight with the whole Taiwanese public. Behaving like that in someone else's country comes back on you, so he should apologise properly
- 5th 926 ∕ 24 I had never heard of him, but it is worth knowing that on YouTube, true or false, the people posting feel that going viral is what counts. Even if the food really did taste bad to him, what he did afterwards looks exactly like chasing view counts
I read all 750 top-level comments. About nineteen hours after publication, at 6.19 on the morning of 25 September 2026. The article holds 982 comments in total, and 180 replies were displayed under the top-level ones. The buttons — 16,480 agree, 647 that-explains-it, 2,756 hmm — 86 to 14. Against the 54 threads counted here before, this one is on the divided side. The vote is top-heavy — the single top comment holds 2,847 presses, 17.3 per cent of the agree presses, the top five hold 59.4 per cent, the top ten 71.4 per cent, the top twenty 84.8 per cent and the top thirty 88.8 per cent. The bottom is silent — 281 of the 750, 37.5 per cent, have not one agree press, 226, 30.1 per cent, have no button pressed at all, and 63, 8.4 per cent, drew more hmm than agree. The average comment runs 86.8 characters, and 57 run over two hundred. Now to what stands out. My own reading was this — I have no idea who watches this; the press covering it is what lets these people swell; there ought to be a mechanism that strips a channel of its payouts or bans it once enough dislikes pile up; and the reason there is none is that the platform puts its own takings first. So I counted how much of that the thread actually wrote. First, the watchers. Thirty-five comments, 4.7 per cent, write the man's name, and they hold 2,771 agree presses, 16.8 per cent of the vote. But those same thirty-five drew 1,432 hmm presses — 52.0 per cent of the 2,756 in the whole thread. Narrowed to the ones that say outright that the writer watches, or used to watch, his channel, there are ten, 1.3 per cent, and they carry 1,337 hmm presses, 48.5 per cent. The other way round, comments saying they had never heard of him number thirty-six, 4.8 per cent, with 2,013 agree presses, 12.2 per cent of the vote, and only 200 hmm presses, 7.3 per cent. The people who watch him were in this thread, and they absorbed half of its pushback. Next, the press and the mechanism. Comments naming the media, the weeklies or the reporting, and saying it should not be covered, number sixteen, 2.1 per cent, with 69 agree presses, 0.4 per cent of the vote. Comments naming YouTube, its owners, the platform or the payout system number twenty-five, 3.3 per cent, with 896 presses, 5.4 per cent. Among them is one comment asking that videos like this be made to earn nothing (342 presses, 10th by vote) and one asking for a rule that a fixed proportion of dislikes stops a channel's payouts (63 presses, 25th). The same proposal I made is in this thread. It simply holds 5.4 per cent of the vote. Comments touching the thumbnail number seven, 0.9 per cent, with 171 presses, 1.0 per cent. Comments calling it a publicity stunt number forty-two, 5.6 per cent, with 595 presses, 3.6 per cent. So where did the vote go. Comments about his manner — spitting it out, the way he put it, his choice of words, consideration, manners, courtesy, respect, rudeness — number 111, 14.8 per cent, with 7,698 agree presses, 46.7 per cent of the vote. Comments saying it is shameful as a Japanese person, or a disgrace to Japan, number sixty-five, 8.7 per cent, with 4,273 presses, 25.9 per cent. Comments about culture, respect and deference number fifty-two, 6.9 per cent, with 5,378 presses, 32.6 per cent. Comments pointing out that he lives off Taiwan number twenty-five, 3.3 per cent, with 3,121 presses, 18.9 per cent. Comments saying he should apologise to Taiwan number twenty-four, 3.2 per cent, with 2,488 presses, 15.1 per cent. Comments saying taste is subjective, a matter of preference, number sixty, 8.0 per cent, with 1,592 presses, 9.7 per cent. Comments touching on China number thirty-three, 4.4 per cent, with 3,201 presses, 19.4 per cent. Comments saying the people attacking him have gone too far, that one-star reviews from people who never ate there are wrong, number fourteen, 1.9 per cent, with 2,912 presses, 17.7 per cent. I counted the thumbnail's own word too. Comments using mindo, the word for the standard of a whole populace, number 115, 15.3 per cent, with 3,717 presses, 22.6 per cent. Thirty-eight of them, 5.1 per cent, turn the word back on him or on Japan, and those carry 581 presses, 3.5 per cent. Comments saying to push it away yourself, not to watch, to leave it alone, number thirteen, 1.7 per cent, with 440 presses, 2.7 per cent. The comment 8th by vote (362 presses) sets out five steps — unsubscribe, mark it not interested, press dislike, delete it from your history, never play it again. Not fix the mechanism, but erase it yourself. The replies — 180 in all, of which 45, 25.0 per cent, sit under the single top comment. The top five hold 108, 60.0 per cent, and 719 of the 750, 95.9 per cent, have no reply at all. What I have not checked — I have not watched his videos, and I have not established what the food was actually like. What the article carries is the content of the 9 August video, the explanation video of 23 September, and the Taiwanese reporting. I have not checked the one-star reviews left on his shop either. What I counted but do not quote — comments containing an insult, idiot, fool, trash, bottom-feeder, contemptible, shameless, number fifty-seven, 7.6 per cent, with 2,006 presses, 12.2 per cent of the vote. Comments mocking someone's looks number three, 0.4 per cent, with 19 presses, 0.1 per cent. Comments touching on ancestry, naturalisation, nationality or being anti-Japanese number seventeen, 2.3 per cent, with 21 presses, 0.1 per cent. This site counts comments that mock appearance and comments about ancestry but does not put them in the text. One comment carried what looked like his legal name; the article does not publish it, so neither do I. Finally, the answers to my own reading. I have no idea who watches this — they were here, thirty-five comments, 4.7 per cent, absorbing 52.0 per cent of the thread's hmm presses. The press covering it is what lets them swell — comments saying so hold 0.4 per cent of the vote. There ought to be a mechanism, the platform puts its takings first — comments saying so hold 5.4 per cent; the proposal is there, the vote is not. What 46.7 per cent of the vote went to was his manner of speaking, and what 25.9 per cent went to was shame — shameful as a Japanese person. The comment shared on X was the top comment of this thread itself, with 2,847 agree presses, 38 that-explains-it, 110 hmm and 45 replies. And on the name — he appears in public under a broadcasting name, the article publishes only that name, and so do I. This site withholds a name only when the person is private and caught up in an incident.
At eleven in the morning on 24 September 2026, the weekly magazine Jisin published a story on Yahoo! News Japan.
A Japanese YouTuber who lives in Taiwan and makes videos about Taiwanese food had, in a video posted on 9 August, spat a mouthful from a Kaohsiung night market back out on camera, called it filthy, and said he hated night markets and hated Taiwan. Taiwanese outlets picked it up and the backlash grew.
Then, on 23 September, an explanation video appeared. The line on its thumbnail was "To the low-class people of Taiwan." He has said, in effect, that he wrote it that way because a taunt gets watched.
Seven hundred and fifty people wrote in this Yahoo! News comment thread.
How I read it
I have no idea who watches things like this.
If the people who do watch simply made a noise about it, that would be one thing. But the press picks it up, and that is what lets people who live off outrage swell.
The thumbnail alone is unpleasant.
There ought to be a mechanism — once a certain number of dislikes lands, the channel is banned or stripped of its payouts. The reason there is none is that the company puts its own position and its own takings first.
That is how I read it.
So this time I turned it into something countable. Who does this thread say is to blame? The people watching, the press reporting it, YouTube for lending him the room, or the man himself?
86 to 14 — 750 comments, about nineteen hours in
I read all 750 top-level comments. The article carries 982 comments in total, and 180 replies were displayed.
The buttons — 16,480 agree, 647 that-explains-it, 2,756 hmm. Eighty-six to fourteen.
Against the 54 threads counted here before, this one is on the divided side. The most divided was a car-park thread at 63 to 37.
The vote sits at the top. The single top comment holds 2,847 agree presses, 17.3 per cent of them all; the top five hold 59.4 per cent, the top ten 71.4 per cent, the top twenty 84.8 per cent and the top thirty 88.8 per cent.
The bottom is silent. Of 750 comments, 281 — 37.5 per cent — have not one agree press. In 226 of them, 30.1 per cent, no button was pressed at all.
The average comment runs 86.8 characters, and 57 run past two hundred.
The most-agreed comment is the one that was shared
Here is the most-read voice in the thread, first.
Watching this is shameful as a Japanese person. Calling food bad is your own business. Spitting it out, saying you hate Taiwan, and then after the backlash taunting people with a line about "some low-class Taiwanese people" is an entirely separate matter. On top of that he lives in Taiwan, makes his videos about Taiwan, and runs a shop there. He takes all that from the place, and when he is criticised he turns on Taiwanese people's standards. I wonder what he thinks he is doing. The one-star reviews and personal abuse aimed at his shop by people who never ate there are obviously wrong. But that being wrong and the criticism of his own conduct are two different things. And he says he has no intention of learning the local language, living in Taiwan. He dislikes Taiwan, dislikes the night markets, will not learn the language. And still he keeps making a living by broadcasting about Taiwan. Calling something a "frank opinion" does not settle everything. As a Japanese person working abroad, I would like him to think a little more about how his words land.
これは日本人として見ていて恥ずかしくなる。
料理を「まずい」と評価するのは自由。それと、料理を吐き出し「台湾嫌い」と言い、炎上後に「一部の民度の低い台湾人のみなさまへ」と煽るのは全く別の話。
しかも台湾に住み、台湾を題材に動画を作り、台湾で店まで経営している。それだけ現地から恩恵を受けながら、批判されたら今度は台湾人を「民度」で煽る。何がしたいのかと思う。
店への食べてもいない人からの低評価や人格攻撃は当然おかしい。でも、それがおかしいことと本人の言動への批判は別でしょう。
さらに台湾在住なのに現地の言葉を勉強する気もないと言う。
台湾が嫌い、夜市も嫌い、現地語も学ぶ気がない。それでも台湾を利用した発信と商売は続ける。
「率直な意見」で何でも済むわけではない。
海外で活動する日本人として、もう少し自分の言葉がどう受け取られるか考えてほしい。That is 2,847 agree presses, 17.3 per cent of the thread's agree presses, with 45 replies under it.
This is the comment that was shared on X. It is the comment at the very top of the thread.
The line to read is the fourth. The same comment also rejects the excesses of the people attacking him. One-star reviews from people who never ate at his shop are wrong, it says — and then separates that from the criticism of what he himself did.
"Who watches this" — they were here
I said I had no idea who watches things like this.
So I counted. Thirty-five comments — 4.7 per cent — write the man's name. They hold 2,771 agree presses, 16.8 per cent of the vote.
But those same thirty-five drew 1,432 hmm presses. The thread holds 2,756 in total, so that is 52.0 per cent.
Four point seven per cent of the comments absorbed half of the pushback.
Narrow it further. Comments that say outright that the writer watches, or used to watch, his channel number ten — 1.3 per cent. Those ten drew 1,337 hmm presses, 48.5 per cent.
This is the single most pushed-back comment in the thread.
I watch Zoro's YouTube a lot, and he has always been like this. He says plainly that good things are good and bad things are bad, and he has been saying he dislikes night markets for years. And if you watch Zoro's YouTube you can tell he definitely loves Taiwan. Otherwise he would not live there. For a Japanese person travelling to Taiwan, it is all extremely useful.
ゾロさんのユーチューブよく観てるけど、昔っからこんなだったよね。
美味しいものは美味しいまずいものはまずいとはっきり言うし、夜市嫌いも昔っから言ってるよ。
そしてゾロさんのユーチューブ見てればわかりますが台湾のことは絶対好きですよ。でなきゃ住まないよね。
日本人で台湾に旅行する時は非常に参考になるとまうがばかりです。That is 1,714 agree presses against 422 hmm presses — the largest number of hmm presses on any comment in the thread.
Go down the list by hmm presses and the same shape keeps coming back. One comment with 365, another with 219: I watch him a lot; I have been watching for years; I have followed him for a long time — and then, he is not in the wrong.
The other way round, comments saying they had never heard of him number thirty-six, 4.8 per cent, with 2,013 agree presses, 12.2 per cent of the vote, and only 200 hmm presses, 7.3 per cent.
Write as a stranger and the vote comes. Write as a viewer and it is pushed back.
"Because the press covers him" holds 0.4 per cent of the vote
I counted the comments that name the media, the weeklies or the reporting and say it should not be covered, that he should not be made news.
Sixteen comments, 2.1 per cent, with 69 agree presses — 0.4 per cent of the vote.
Sixteen out of 750. The largest of them holds 34 presses.
This thread does not blame the people reporting it.
"Fix the mechanism" holds 5.4 per cent of the vote
Comments naming YouTube, its owners, the platform or the payout system number twenty-five — 3.3 per cent — with 896 agree presses, 5.4 per cent of the vote.
And inside them is a comment that says exactly what I said. Tenth by vote, 342 agree presses.
I do not watch videos, so I am not familiar with how it works, but I would like videos as unpleasant as this to earn nothing. Or, the other way about, could it not be arranged so that the person has to pay YouTube instead?
動画を見ないので、仕組みに疎いのですが、こういう不快な動画は収益が出ないようにして欲しいです。もしくは、逆にYouTubeに支払いが生じるようにするとかできないのでしょうか。Twenty-fifth by vote (63 presses) asks for a rule under which a set proportion of dislikes stops a channel's payouts.
Twentieth by vote (148 presses) says the problem is YouTube in the end — paying for this is the same as a company endorsing it.
So my reading was in this thread. It is twenty-five comments and 5.4 per cent of the vote.
What the vote went to was his manner
Comments touching on any of spitting it out, the way he put it, his phrasing, consideration, manners, courtesy, respect or rudeness number 111 — 14.8 per cent — with 7,698 agree presses, 46.7 per cent of the vote.
That is larger than any other subject I counted in this thread.
The shape of it is this: thinking the food is bad is your own business, but there is a way to say it. Sixth by vote (529 presses) says he is not a child and could have wrapped it more gently. Twenty-eighth asks whether the spitting was necessary, and whether "not to my taste" was not available to him.
Comments saying that taste is subjective, a matter of preference, number sixty, 8.0 per cent, with 1,592 presses, 9.7 per cent of the vote. This thread does not fault the verdict on the food itself.
And what this thread wrote was shame
Comments saying this is shameful as a Japanese person, pitiful, a disgrace to Japan, number sixty-five — 8.7 per cent — with 4,273 agree presses, 25.9 per cent of the vote.
Comments about culture, respect and deference number fifty-two, 6.9 per cent, with 5,378 presses, 32.6 per cent. The second comment by vote says that some countries eat caterpillars and some eat snails, that plenty of visitors to Japan cannot face natto, and that respecting another country's culture matters.
Comments pointing out that he lives in Taiwan and lives off Taiwan number twenty-five, 3.3 per cent, with 3,121 presses, 18.9 per cent.
Comments saying he should apologise to Taiwan number twenty-four, 3.2 per cent, with 2,488 presses, 15.1 per cent.
Comments touching on China number thirty-three, 4.4 per cent, with 3,201 presses, 19.4 per cent — mostly in the form of wanting the relationship with Taiwan strengthened.
"Mindo" appears 115 times, and thirty-eight of them turn it around
The word on the thumbnail was mindo — the standard of a whole populace.
Comments using it number 115 — 15.3 per cent — with 3,717 agree presses, 22.6 per cent of the vote.
Of those, thirty-eight — 5.1 per cent — turn the word back on him or on Japan: you are the one whose mindo is low. They hold 581 presses, 3.5 per cent of the vote.
A third of them turn it around, but the vote on that is small. What collects the vote is not the comment that answers back. It is the comment that says it is shameful.
One comment says: erase it yourself
Next to the comments asking for the mechanism to be fixed sits this one. Eighth by vote, 362 agree presses.
Unsubscribe from the channel. Mark it not interested. Press dislike. Delete it from your watch history. Never play it again — five steps, set out in order.
Widen it to every comment saying not to watch, to leave him alone, and it is thirteen, 1.7 per cent, with 440 presses, 2.7 per cent of the vote.
Stop it with a rule (5.4 per cent) and erase it yourself (2.7 per cent) are both small in this thread.
95.9 per cent of the comments have no reply
The thread displayed 180 replies. Of those, 45 — 25.0 per cent — sit under the single top comment. The top five hold 108, 60.0 per cent.
Of 750 comments, 719 — 95.9 per cent — have no reply at all.
A note on the word "mindo"
This is the hardest word in the piece to carry across.
Mindo grades the manners and standard of a whole populace. It attaches to a group, not to a person. So anyone told their mindo is low hears their group being priced up, not themselves.
That is where the anger in Taiwan and the shame in this thread meet. The Japanese comment thread read the word as coming back onto Japanese people as a whole.
And thirty-eight of the 115 throw the same word straight back.
What I have not checked
I have not watched his videos, and I have not established what the food was actually like. What the article carries is the content of the 9 August video, the explanation video of 23 September, and the Taiwanese reporting.
I have not checked the one-star reviews left on his shop either. The top comment calls them wrong, but I have not counted how many there were.
Counted, not quoted
Comments containing an insult — idiot, fool, trash, bottom-feeder, contemptible, shameless — number fifty-seven, 7.6 per cent, with 2,006 agree presses, 12.2 per cent of the vote.
Comments mocking someone's looks number three, 0.4 per cent, with 19 presses, 0.1 per cent.
Comments touching on ancestry, naturalisation, nationality or being anti-Japanese number seventeen, 2.3 per cent, with 21 presses, 0.1 per cent. They are written, but almost nothing is pressed on them.
This site counts comments that mock appearance and comments about ancestry, and keeps them out of the text.
One comment also carried what appeared to be the man's legal name. The article does not publish it, so neither do I.
Checking my reading against the count
I have no idea who watches this — that was where my reading began.
They were here. Thirty-five comments, 4.7 per cent, write his name; ten of them, 1.3 per cent, say they watch him.
And those thirty-five absorbed 52.0 per cent of the thread's hmm presses.
The press covering it is what lets them swell — sixteen comments, 2.1 per cent, 0.4 per cent of the vote. This thread does not blame the people reporting it.
There ought to be a mechanism; the platform puts its takings first — twenty-five comments, 3.3 per cent, 5.4 per cent of the vote. The proposal is there. Only the vote is missing.
The thumbnail alone is unpleasant — seven comments, 0.9 per cent, 1.0 per cent of the vote.
What 46.7 per cent of the vote went to instead was his manner of speaking. And what 25.9 per cent went to was shame — shameful as a Japanese person.
What this thread was actually saying
This thread did not ask for him to be stopped.
Ban him, cut his payouts, stop writing about him — add every comment of that kind together and it does not reach 6 per cent of the vote.
What this thread wrote instead was shame.
We are being watched, it says. Taiwan is watching. Other countries are watching. And that is why it is shameful.
The last line of the top comment is that as a Japanese person working abroad, he should think a little more about how his words land.
Not a mechanism. Shame.
And the people this thread pushed back on hardest were the ones who said they watch him. Four point seven per cent of the comments absorbed 52.0 per cent of the pushback.
On the name
He appears in public under a broadcasting name, and the article publishes only that name, so that is the only name used here.
This site withholds a name only when the person is private and has been caught up in an incident. One comment in this thread carried what looked like his legal name; the article does not publish it, so neither do I.
Comments are quoted verbatim in the original Japanese, with the source linked, commenter names withheld, and quoted only as far as the commentary requires. Translations are mine. Source articles may expire (retrieval dates noted). The substance of this piece is the author's commentary.