ネトスト (netosuto): ‘Internet Stalking’ in Japanese Slang

Pronunciation

Definition

ネトスト (ねとすと, netosuto) describes the act of “stalking” someone on social media, that is, meticulously checking their every single activity online. For instance, it is pretty much ネトスト if you follow someone on Facebook and monitor all of their posts, pictures, conversations with others, and events they have joined. Casual online stalking is also called ネトスト, such as looking through the past posts of someone you’re curious about (e.g. your friend’s new boyfriend/girlfriend)

How ネトストis committed

Typically, people do ネトスト to obtain a frightening amount of knowledge about their “beloved” persons such as their crush, exes, or the members of their favourite idol group. They usually do ネトスト in a surreptitious way, being as cautious as possible not to accidentally click their targets’ posts that were published a long time ago. In this case, despite the tone of the word, the act is quite harmless for the targeted persons.

Some raving mad fanatics, however, go overboard and audaciously attempt to interact with their targets by “liking” every single post of theirs and sending them piles of direct messages.

Word origin

ネトスト is an abbreviation of the Japanese-English expression “インターネットストーカー” meaning “Internet stalker” and describes the act of following someone meticulously on SNS.

Example Sentences

Ex1:
A: 毎日まいにちアヤちゃんの写真しゃしんfacebookで見みてるんだけど、マジかわいい！
B: キモ、お前まえネトストしてんのかよ
A: Every day I enjoy Aya’s photos posted on her Facebook account. She is so hot!
B: Eww gross, you are doing ネトスト (stalking her online).

Ex2:
田中たなかくんのことが気きになって、ついツイッターでネトストしちゃう
I’m so preoccupied with Tanaka and I ネトストしちゃう (can’t help stalking) him on Twitter. ( = checking every single tweet of his)

Ex3:
A: 最近さいきん、ツイッターで知しらない人ひとが毎回まいかいコメントしてきて気持きもち悪わるい
B: それ完全かんぜんにネトストじゃん
A: Recently, this stranger has been replying to every single post of mine on Twitter. It is so frightening.
B: Wow that is totally ネトスト (social media stalking).

Synonyms: ストーカー (stalker)
Synonyms in English: cyberstalking, social media stalking
Related words and phrases: ネット (net, Internet)