On 5ch’s “Nanji-G” board (なんでも実況G, a live-chat discussion board), a thread about “dopa-gaki” — slang for people so hooked on their phones they can’t focus, literally “dopamine brats” — sparked debate over whether the label should really be limited to kids. Posters pointed out that countless adults are just as enslaved to dopamine through booze, cigarettes, gambling, and phone addiction, kicking off an argument about what to call them instead. Someone floated “dopa-min” (playing off “dopamine” plus the common online-fandom suffix “-min,” meaning “folk/citizens”) as a new term, but opinions split over whether it actually sounds catchy or lands as a decent jab. Scrolling your phone at the dinner table came up as the textbook “dopa-gaki” move, and the talk spread into where exactly to draw the line — does watching videos or TV count too?
What do we even call them?
Everyone already knows it's not just kids.
Sorry. I'm not really following.
Just thought this one up myself, what do you think?
Eh, it's iffy.
Won't catch on unless it's a name people actually want to say out loud.
Wait, does anyone actually say "dopa-gaki" out loud in real life?
Or is it strictly internet slang?
People do.
Streamers say it all the time.
Nah, it's pronounced basically the same as "dopamine," so it's just that word unchanged.
No creativity there.
"Dopa-min" is genuinely good 😡
Just admit it already 😡
Seriously, it's all I see lately, kind of freaks me out.
You need both hands to eat! 🥺
Is watching videos while eating a pass, though?
There's no rule that says it can't sound the same.
No clue about your favorite streamer, though.
It's a problem.
Not sure where you get that confidence, but
name me one word that caught on despite sounding awkward.
I get that. Even at the theater I end up just wishing it would hurry up and end.
I can actually focus at the theater.
Since I can't touch my phone there, watching the movie is all there is to do.
At home, forget it.
Gives it that '-min' fandom-nickname vibe (like "Masaoka-min"), works fine.
mocking others when they're no better themselves.
If "gaki" (kid/brat) is meant to cover adults too, doesn't it carry a "acting like a child at your age" kind of nuance?
That slight mismatch is what feels off.
What exactly feels off about it?
Kids aren't even out here gambling.
Booze, cigarettes, gambling, overeating, phone addiction —
everyone's a slave to dopamine one way or another.
But kids these days are playing games while watching YouTube at the same time, that's a whole different level.
Come to think of it, we used to play games while watching TV too.
I mean, we at least played DS while watching TV.
Wake up ← check Nanji-G
Breakfast time ← check Nanji-G
Before work ← check Nanji-G
Work break ← check Nanji-G
Lunchtime ← check Nanji-G
Work break ← check Nanji-G
After work ← check Nanji-G
Dinnertime ← check Nanji-G
After the bath ← check Nanji-G
Before bed ← check Nanji-G
The fact that you bothered typing out this whole essay says it all…
Nanji-G is basically all unemployed people, on it from the moment they wake up till they go to sleep.
Smartphones, social media, and AI.
It'd be weirder if this didn't turn people stupid.
So you're saying it's the inner immaturity that causes the dopamine addiction?
By that logic you'd have to start calling "kidult uncles" (kodo-oji — grown men still living like kids at home) "kodo-gaki" too, which is weird.
I think watching stuff on your phone counts as dopa-gaki behavior.
Even during meals, if you can't stand it without some other form of entertainment on top,
that's a certified dopa-gaki right there.
So TV is fine? What about radio?
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
The core disagreement in this thread comes down to whether “gaki” (kid/brat) refers to actual age or to a kind of inner immaturity. In response to the point that plenty of adults are just as hooked on gambling, alcohol, and their phones, some pushed back that simply extending “gaki” to adults brings along an unwanted extra nuance — something like “acting like a child at your age” — so widening who the term covers isn’t as simple as it sounds. The alternative name floated, “dopa-min,” also split opinion, since it’s pronounced almost identically to “dopamine” and so lands as a weaker jab than intended; no clear replacement emerged from the thread. Exactly where “dopa-gaki” behavior starts and stops was also left unresolved — checking your phone during meals was cited as the textbook example, but there was no agreement on whether watching videos or TV while eating counts the same way. Nearly every post took for granted that smartphones and social media have reshaped people’s attention spans and habits, but the thread never settled on what to call the phenomenon or exactly who it should apply to.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nanji-G) thread “Dopa-gaki — shouldn’t be limited to just kids, right?“.
