Making hidden religiosity visible in Japan: A computational analysis on social media

While major world religions have long been the focus of psychological research, folk religions remain understudied due to their lack of formal doctrines and their embeddedness in daily life. This study explores how implicit religiosity is spontaneously expressed in language on social media, focusing on Japan. Over 7,000 Japanese and English YouTube comments on Apple’s 2024 “Crush!” ad—criticized in Japan for violating the belief that even inanimate objects possess a spirit—were analyzed. A combination of dictionary-based and topic modeling approaches was applied to examine emotional and religious content. Japanese comments lacked explicit religious references but frequently included culturally specific terms such as mottainai, linked to animistic values. These expressions co-occurred with negative emotion- and religion-related language. In contrast, English comments featured general emotional responses without spiritually embedded expressions. The findings highlight how computational linguistic methods can uncover culturally grounded forms of implicit religiosity in everyday language.