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Paper short abstract

This paper explores the homosocial world of male vigilante YouTubers whose offline lives and activities unfold in the Shinjuku realm, elucidating how the combination of online vigilante culture and offline Shinjuku culture equips them with aesthetic and practical tools to assert their way of life.

Paper long abstract

This paper explores the homosocial world of male vigilante YouTubers whose offline lives and activities unfold in the Tokyo Shinjuku realm to elucidate how the combination of online vigilante culture and offline Shinjuku culture equips them with aesthetic and practical tools to assert their way of life. Vigilante YouTubers typically film confrontations with those who are engaging with criminal and illicit acts, ranging from sexual assaults in public spaces and prostitution to fraudulent acts and infidelity. They earn revenues by uploading their footage via the content-sharing platform, which often becomes a popular channel for its exciting and tense contents. In the backdrop of crumbling prototypical ‘salaryman’ masculinity due to the changing economic landscapes and gender norms in neoliberal Japan, vigilante YouTubers who challenge hegemonic masculinity by often exposing salarymen’s wrongdoings behind their legitimate façade, weaponising surveillance gaze and exercising moral superiority negotiate an embedded concept of socially ‘proper’ role (Demelius & Yoshida, 2025). Often portrayed as an underworld filled with scandals, Red Light and criminal activities, Shinjuku has accommodated various neighbourhoods and phases over many years. Particularly in recent years, male vigilante-content creators capitalise on the underground and blasé image of Shinjuku while legitimising alternative forms of masculinities. These vigilantes cultivate social media culture to take advantage of the attention economy while engaging in and filming edgework in their Shinjuku turf. By doing so, they try to thrive and justify free lifestyles away from the so-called ‘respectable mainstream’. Based on the combined theoretical frameworks of Stuart Hall’s (1996) ‘floating signifier’ and Tursic’s (2019) ‘aesthetic space’, this study analyses ethnographic data, interview materials, and published materials offered by the vigilantes who strategically position themselves in the proximity of the underworld. In due course, the present study draws out phenomenological snapshots of proprietors’ Shinjuku aesthetics, thereby highlighting the significant role that physical space plays in shaping the aesthetics of the vigilante YouTubers.