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Tempura, anyone? Prank at sushi chain involving deep-fried scissors lands part-timers in hot oil

In 2013, Japan saw a meteoric rise in internet photos that depict part-time workers’ silly and sometimes idiotic antics while on the clock (remember the freezer diving phenomenon?). Though the term “bakattā” (a portmanteau word that’s not restricted to part-timers and combines baka, or idiot, and tsuittaa, the Japanese pronunciation of Twitter) was coined back in 2010, it gained even more popularity last year and took fourth place in the 2013 Internet Buzzword Awards, sponsored by the Tokyo company Mirai Kensaku Brazil.

The craze of bragging about law-breaking or idiotic behavior on social networking sites has thankfully died down, partly due to publicization of the serious repercussions faced by some perpetrators. However, it seems like a couple of young guys working at a major revolving sushi chain had not been watching the news, or were looking to get fired: a photo uploaded on the evening of September 24 with a Tweet that said, “I invented a new menu item with [name deleted] today! Lololol” spread like wildfire, only to reach the head of the company by the following morning. D’oh!

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College students “go shoplifting,” document the act with Twitpics

Someone believed to be a college student recently posted an image of another college girl shoplifting food on Twitter. According to the photos, she girls stole some onigiri and what appear to be two cups of instant noodles.

This is just the latest installment in the recently growing fad of posting obnoxious or illegal behavior on Twitter with the apparent aim of receiving hate posts from other netizens. This tweet was no different, receiving scorn and speculation for scores of watchers.

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