Every piece of content on the internet can be divisive these days, even the innocuous stuff. This truism was on full display over the past week and a half thanks to a now-removed YouTube video set in a Tokyo sushi restaurant, which charmed many Western viewers and angered a few Japanese.
On March 6, Tokyo-based American YouTuber Tkyosam posted a video to his channel showing him placing a GoPro on a conveyor belt at sushi restaurant chain Sushiro. The device moved around the revolving belt, recording other customers as they eat. Some don’t see the camera, others point it out, while several happily wave at it. When it reaches the back, an employee plucks it off the belt, and consults what appears to be a manager about what to do. After a minute and a half of being pointed at a wall, the camera is returned to its owner.
The video, originally titled “Camera goes on Japanese sushi conveyor belt — TROUBLE!!!” before being taken down last week, features some cute shots. However, it’s not completely original. Several dozen videos of GoPro cameras placed on conveyor belts come up on YouTube, some set in Japan (“not the first of this kind, I know” reads a description from six years ago) and others from abroad. Some focus on the “sushi train” aspect of the journey, while others misuse the “Yackety Sax” theme song from “Benny Hill.” Examples exist even from early internet days — see this 1998 music video.
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