YABAI Real Japanese

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egosa

Searching your own name. Again.


What does egosa mean?

Ego searching, clipped. Typing your own handle into the search bar to see what the world said about you in the last four minutes.

Example

After posting, I end up ego-searching every five minutes.

Vibe

Who you can say this to, and how it lands.

Friends only Casual. Natural with friends, out of place at work or with strangers.

  • Internet
  • Self-deprecating
  • Casual

The story behind egosa

エゴサ is エゴサーチ trimmed down, from the English idea of ego surfing: typing your own name into a search box to see what comes back. Japanese kept it and put it to work the moment social media made the results endless. Search engines were the first target; now it is mostly the search bar of a timeline.

What is charming is how openly people admit to it. Creators, comedians and voice actors talk on air about doing it, sometimes about the interval between refreshes. Everybody knows the rule: the good comments are read once, and the one bad comment is read until memorised.

Get egosa in your pocket

エゴサ is one of 308 words in YABAI, a Japanese culture snack for Android. Every word comes with its meaning, an example sentence, a vibe check and a story like the one above — in 13 languages, read aloud by your device. Paid app: no ads, no sign-up, no subscription.

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