ABOUT

About this museum

The Japanese Buzzword Museum is a collection of Japanese words that were, for a while, everywhere.

Slang, catchphrases, fad words, internet terms — from the 1970s to the 2020s. Each one is displayed like an object in a museum: a number, a date, a label.

Why words

A buzzword is a small piece of evidence. It shows what a country worried about, took pride in, or laughed at in a particular decade. Risutora was not a neutral word in 1990s Japan. Kaeru-ka could only have spread in the age of short video.

Some words here are still spoken every day. Others are extinct. Both are kept. The dead ones are often the better exhibits: a dead word holds its era still, while a living one keeps moving.

What is in an exhibit

Each exhibit has two main parts.

Provenance — where the word came from, and how it spread.
Field notes — how it was actually used, with an example sentence.

What is collected

This is not a list of every buzzword. There are far too many, and most have no story.

The ones collected here are the ones that can be told: a word with an origin worth tracing, a strange turn in its meaning, or a clear view of the era standing behind it.

Words that were unkind are displayed too. Slang is not always polite, and a museum that removed every sharp word would be describing a country that never existed. What such a word did is explained. It is not recommended.

About the facts

Word histories are often uncertain. Dates and origins are checked before writing. When a date is not solid, the decade is given instead of the year. When something is debated, it is described as debated.

If you find a mistake, please write to: info@buzzwordmuseum.com

Who runs this place

Curated and edited by Bird Note, in Japan.

Admission

Open 24 hours. Admission free. No gift shop.