baka gaijin
[bah-kuh gahy-zheen]
What does baka gaijin mean?
The expression baka gaijin means “stupid foreigner” in Japanese.
Where does baka gaijin come from?
Baka gaijin is romaji for the Japanese kanji 馬鹿外人. Baka (attested in the 14th century) means “a fool” or “foolish.” Gaijin, the Japanese word for “foreigner,” is attested in the 13th-century. Gai (外) literally means “outside,” and jin (人) means “person.”
https://twitter.com/BabDotCom/status/1088551369420623872
Together, baka gaijin is a “stupid foreigner.” The expression itself is attested by at least the 1970s in kanji and by 1989 in romaji. It is used by Japanese people for non-Japanese people they think are acting inappropriately. Baka can be insulting or, more mildly, disapproving.
https://twitter.com/jaalyn/status/46133724286435328
By at least 1995, baka gaijin surfaced in online message boards about manga, or Japanese comics. In this context, even people who weren’t Japanese were using baka gaijin as an insult to people who didn’t intimately understand manga, or to anyone who says or does something the manga community deems stupid or inappropriate.
Trump: "Hentai is actually very normal in Japan, you baka gaijin will never understand's Nippon's culture. I can't wait to move there once I graduate."
— Everything Price Sufferer (but especially eggs) (@agraybee) September 26, 2018
Examples of baka gaijin
I don’t know what happened to japanese game companies during the 360 era but they really got their shit together to assert dominance over the Baka gaijin
As one of the biggest attractions in one of Japan’s top wrestling promotions, Stardom World, [Kimberly "The Viper" Benson] is the top baddie in the sport, and referred to as baka gaijin – which means stupid foreigner.
Who uses baka gaijin?
The expression baka gaijin is primarily used, of course, by Japanese people. It’s mildly pejorative—and certainly dismissive.
@hazelnutpon a lone weeb is heard in the distance; "theyre called manga you baka gaijin"
— Grant Barnes (@Less_Than_Grant) July 30, 2015
Baka gaijin is also used by non-Japanese admirers of Japanese culture in self-deprecation, or in response to behavior considered silly or uncouth in the eyes of Japan. There is even apparel emblazoned with baka gaijin.
https://twitter.com/jlist/status/865967890171908096
Was just eating a sandwich on the train and part of it fell onto the Japanese guy next to me….
IM SO SORRY IM A BAKA GAIJIN
😰😰😭😭🙏🙏— RetroGaijin (@RetroGaijin) December 12, 2018
Many of these admirers are Western lovers of manga and anime (otaku). They’ve adopted baka gaijin—along with baka and many other Japanese words—to describe people who fail to follow various conventions in the community and art forms.
You, a common baka gaijin anime fan : One Piece.
Me, an enlightened otaku : Two Pieces.— Matthew (@_mjwills) April 29, 2018
Then there is the guy who went on vacation to Japan and asked for a tattoo reading God Almighty in kanji. But he got a tattoo that said baka gaijin.
NOTE
This is not meant to be a formal definition of baka gaijin like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of baka gaijin that will help our users expand their word mastery.
