Over the last month or so, the hottest topic on the Japanese Web scene has been inconsiderate and shocking behavior by convenience- and food chain-stores employees who messed about with appliances and food, and then boasted with photos on social media, mainly on Twitter. While the initial so-called enjō (to burn — as in it spreads like wildfire) criticism and severe bashing of the culprits was on the Web, it has now spilled over into mainstream media.
The first of the recent incidents that caught people's attention happened on July 14 on Facebook, where a man posted a picture of himself lying on an ice-cream refrigerator. Netizens rapidly identified that the photo was taken in a Lawson convenience store in Kochi Prefecture. On the very next day, Lawson announced the halting of the store's franchise contract, the closure of the store for an undetermined period and the sacking of the employee responsible for the prank.
In the same week, on July 15, a Family Mart employee in Kanagawa Prefecture uploaded a photo to Twitter of a professional soccer player's private visit to the store. The employee had salvaged the image from the shop's surveillance video. Family Mart apologized for the incident on its website.