TikTok: What is the meaning of Ara Ara? Anime take-over!

Sensual, sexy, soothing. The new trend ‘Ara Ara’ has taken over TikTok’s anime genre.

Meaning of ‘Ara Ara’ on TikTok

The term ‘Ara Ara’ derives from the Japanese language and has a few different meanings; ‘Oh dear’ or ‘Hmmm’ being two.

The term is often used in anime as an expression of taking care of someone, in specific a girl taking care of a younger boy they find attractive. This relating to the Japanese slang ‘shotacon’, an abbreviation of being attracted to a younger boy.

Is this a way of people becoming open and making it a norm to being attracted to ‘shotacon’ stuff, in the same way, incest/step-stuff in recent years has become more of an acceptance online?

Imouto or Loli characters are the sisters of anime, they are generally portrayed as submissive, Onee-chan characters tend to be more dominant, so it is likely just part of a shift in what’s considered funny in the anime meme community.

Anime on TikTok

TikTok’s anime genre has developed a huge following, which isn’t necessarily surprising as anime is one of the largest TV genres in the world. There are 7 billion people in the world and 3 to 4 billion of those people are 1–21 years old. 60% of 1–21-year-olds watch anime so approximately 2 to 3 billion people watch anime.

The idea of the ‘Ara Ara’ trend is to have a go at saying ‘Ara Ara’ in the different ways they say it on the anime programs. The majority of the TikTok’s are done by females, as the characters that say ‘Ara Ara’ are female, however, some males have not shied away from giving it a go.

One of the big popularities to the trend is the sensual factor it has on the ears, the gentle tone and almost whisper the TikToker’s say it in makes for a very soothing sound. People commenting “My ears: BLESSED” and “Any ara from you will make people :)”.

Here’s how to get involved

Step 1:

Search on YouTube or TikTok; ‘Ara Ara different styles’;

Step 2:

Practice doing the different styles of ‘Ara Ara’;

Step 3:

Set up your camera and record yourself doing at least three of the different ‘Ara Ara’ styles and if you want you can add connecting sentences in-between each, for example, “or is it the”;

Step 4:

Upload the video onto your TikTok, use hashtags like #araara and #anime to boost your views.