Japanese spaces on X (formerly Twitter) are inhabited by large volumes of overseas engagement farmers. These are colloquially referred to as \u201cimpression zombies\u201d (jp: \u30a4\u30f3\u30d7\u30ec\u30be\u30f3\u30d3), due to many of them being actual bots or behaving like bots, posting large volumes of unrelated replies under high-engagement tweets. It goes without saying that such accounts are considered a nuisance (and even dangerous in some situations, as explained below). But recently, there has been an unexpectedly wholesome development between Japanese users and impression farmers, particularly Nigerian ones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Japan\u2019s \u201cimpression zombie\u201d problem first started around August 2023, when X introduced its impression-based revenue model for accounts subscribed to X Premium. Of course, the same phenomenon can be seen worldwide, with no tweet being safe from \u201cp***y in bio\u201d replies. However, Japan seems to have it quite bad, with non-Japanese accounts flooding popular posts and hashtags, often copy-pasting the posts of Japanese speakers for engagement. It is thought that Japanese spaces on X are particularly targeted by engagement farmers due to their high traffic. According to Yomiuri Shimbun<\/a>, an average of 40 million Japanese people use X daily, and Japanese users have the highest average daily time spent on the site. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Apart from making it difficult to find replies that are relevant to ongoing topics, posts by impression zombies are also potentially dangerous in times of natural disasters and accidents. The NHK<\/a> reports that during the 2024 Noto Peninsula Earthquake that claimed 245 lives, impression zombies duplicated posts by real Japanese users calling for help, making it difficult to identify original posters and perform rescues. The high volume of copy-pasted tweets also made it difficult to determine whether a call for help had already been responded to or not. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However, there has been an unexpected development in Japan\u2019s impression zombie situation recently. It all started with X user Masaya-san posting an appeal addressed to impression zombies, asking them to be more \u201chalal\u201d about their ways (seen below).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n