A platform that so often seems to promote division is bringing people together for a change ¡ª and Americans are learning the joy of one of the last great undiscovered parts of the internet.
U.S.-based users of X, formerly known as Twitter, were this weekend bombarded with Japanese-language posts, thanks to AI-enabled auto-translation and what looks like a change to the feed-populating algorithm. It¡¯s a rare crossover of X¡¯s two biggest user bases, one that would have been impossible until recently.
It started with a shared passion of both nations: grilling meat. A Japanese user in Sasebo, a city near Nagasaki that¡¯s home to a U.S. Navy base, shared a drawing of U.S. soldiers excitedly grilling bacon at a yakiniku restaurant. The post aimed to show how residents ¡°live alongside such cool and fun neighbors,¡± and was followed by another with a photo of actual Americans barbecuing. It quickly got global attention, racking up nearly 50 million views, and leading to a flood of wholesome posts from both sides of the Pacific.
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