Self-Defense Geezer

About

Self-Defense Geezer refers to a Japanese man interviewed on a Japanese morning television program who argued that one should not rely on the national pension to be financially stable but rather protect oneself by looking to stocks or leaving the country. The interview went viral on Japanese Twitter, as people compared the man to an anime or video game character.

Origin

The clip appears to have aired on Japanese television in March of 2018. On March 8th, the clip was uploaded to YouTube by user 革靴吐きたい, gaining over 693,000 views. One of the earliest known posts with the character on Twitter is dated March 7th.^[1] In the clip, an anonymous man who is only identified as being 35 years of age offers his opinion on how to remain financially stable in Japan. The name "Self-Defense Geezer" comes from a translation of one of his opinions, saying that looking somewhere other than the national pension for financial security is a form of self defense.

Spread

The man's highly-expressive demeanor in the clip inspired Japanese Twitter users to compare him to characters from pop culture, such as the television show Kamen Raider. For example, Twitter user @Amatu20101201 created a photoshop of the man as a character from the show that gained 20 retweets and 31 likes (shown below, left). Twitter user @kaerusanondwuru did something similar, gaining over 30 retweets and 110 likes (shown below, right).

Twitter user @rumiya0172 compared the man to a character from Final Fantasy XV (shown below, left). The Twitter account for Final Fantasy Japan got in on the joke by tweeting the character Ardin saying lines from the original clip, gaining over 36,000 retweets and 45,000 likes (shown below, right). On March 19th, Kotaku^[2] covered the spread of the character on Twitter.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References