In November of 2023, Virtual Youtuber Natsuiro Matsuri celebrated her 5th anniversary by holding a concert themed after the premier Japanese video streaming site of the 2000s, Nico Nico Douga. The homages came in every form, from covers of Vocaloid songs popular in Nico Nico’s heyday (“Senbonzakura,” “Miku Miku ni Shite Ageru”), to jingles and error messages, and of course, the flurry of on-screen viewer comments that was and still is its signature feature. It wouldn’t be a real Nico Nico parody without that.

For those familiar with Nico Nico, it was most surely a nostalgia trip, but I did see some confusion from the uninitiated. They wondered how people could enjoy a chat that obscures the actual video. I mean, isn’t it distracting? 

In short: yes, it certainly is, but there are benefits as well. While not everyone likes the flying commentary (I know people who turn it off whenever possible), it also adds something to the viewing experience while also being a product of an older era of online video.

There are two important aspects of Nico Nico’s unique comment section that make it a boon more than a detriment. The first one is that because the text is on top of the video, it means you don’t have to constantly look away to see what people are saying. The second (and more crucial) one is that it fosters a pseudo-real-time communal experience without having to watch something live.

Similar to many other video platforms, Nico Nico allows for live streaming currently, but that wasn’t always the case. Like Youtube, it used to be purely pre-recorded material. While comment sections were nothing new even then, what Nico Nico allowed was the ability to have a user’s comment come up at a specific time in a video, so it’s clear what that person was reacting to. On top of that, anyone could post a message in this manner whether they saw a video the day it was uploaded or five years later, and they would show up all the same. This means you can feel like you’re watching with a group of people and quipping about what’s transpired despite not actually being together spatially or temporally. 

In other words, Nico Nico created an asynchronous form of fostering community through its chat, and this extends even to the present day when live streams are plentiful. In contrast, Twitch and Youtube constantly make viewers feel like they’re missing out if they don’t watch live. Twitch’s VOD service is an empty husk now, while Youtube only lets you participate in the chat if you watched something live or at least right when it premiered. There is a comment section, and it even lets you put timestamps, but it is considered its own separate space. On Nico Nico, however, chat and comments are one and the same. This approach, I believe, helps to prevent anxiety about FOMO to some degree.

That‘s not to say Nico Nico doesn’t have its flaws. Non-potato video quality, the ability to watch stream recordings after the fact, and even priority for who can even view something at all can be locked behind a premium membership. Youtube is also just more intuitive to browse and use in any language. But Nico Nico found a solution to the problem of not being able to provide a true simultaneous viewing experience, and I think an approach along those lines still has plenty of merit. 

I’m grateful to Matsuri for the reminder. Nico Nico is such a large piece of Japanese internet history, and for good reason. Maybe we can also be at a point where the flexibility displayed by Nico Nico can help people not be as beholden to rigid schedules and fear of missing out.