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: 毎日アヤちゃんの写真facebookで見てるんだけど、マジかわいい!
B: キモ、お前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:
田中くんのことが気になって、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、ツイッターで知らない人が毎回コメントしてきて気持ち悪い
B: それ完全にネトストじゃん
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)
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