A firsthand account went viral on 5ch’s News Speed+ board: a man believed to be in his 70s, angered by a baby crying on a commuter train, reportedly kept hurling abuse at the apologizing mother, saying things like “sorry doesn’t cut it.” A trio of women who happened to be nearby is said to have given him a sharp rebuke, after which the man had nothing left to say and left the scene. While the thread saw plenty of sympathy for the mother and criticism of the elderly, a good number of commenters also doubted whether the story was even true, calling it “usomatsu” (a term for a suspiciously fake-sounding sob story) or wondering if it was AI-written — producing a mix of emotional sympathy and cool-headed skepticism.
The man who flew into a rage appeared to be around 70 years old. He apparently found the baby’s crying so intolerable that he kept hurling a stream of abuse at the apologizing mother.
“The mother was practically in tears apologizing, saying ‘I’m sorry,’ but the man kept piling on lines like ‘sorry doesn’t solve anything,’ ‘you’re an inconsiderate mother,’ and ‘get off right now’ — the kind of thing that made even bystanders like me uncomfortable to hear. The whole car went dead silent, with nothing but the baby’s crying and the man’s shouting echoing through it.”
◆ The Mysterious Trio Turned Out to Be Allies
Source: topics.smt.docomo.ne.jp / Read the original article here
Amen.
Guess we should all just enjoy the sound of the rails switching and clacking over the points instead.
This story feels amazing, love it!!!
Being spineless and being kind aren't the same thing.
Truly kind men are plenty popular.
You keep saying that, old man, but the punchline is always the same: they end up accused of sexual violence and getting "Nakai-Matsumoto'd" (a reference to the sexual misconduct scandals involving celebrities Nakai Masahiro and Matsumoto Hitoshi).
What you guys call "kind" is just the bare minimum — not being violent is basic human decency. That's not kindness, that's just the floor.
The Violet Flower Clock.
I thought stories made up out of thin air were supposed to be more fun than this.
https://nikkan-spa.jp/2182471
Shoko Makise (pseudonym, 29), who works at an IT company in Tokyo, reportedly ended up riding in the same train car as the man who flew into a rage at a mother with a child, while she was in on her day off.
That's soothing to me lol
Whenever I look at a crying baby
it usually stops crying lol
I can calm them down with just my eyes
Guess it's made its way into SPA articles now too.
Back in the old arcade days someone would've thrown an ashtray at him.
Meet the monster geezer who hit 70 without ever learning a thing from life.
Quit dragging Anna Tsuchiya into this — that's collateral reputational damage.
It's obviously already AI.
Charlie's Angels?
More like the Kisugi sisters.
Is this AI-generated too?
Of course it's just outsourced entirely to AI.
That's because we're a nation of lowlifes who get their kicks reading these feel-good made-up stories.
Yeah, hearing the neighbors' marital spats through the walls used to be a daily occurrence.
Though that was a boring movie.
They say it's basically a birthrate-decline countermeasure movie —
if you don't call out the power-harassing old man on the train,
you can't get out of the station.
This isn't satisfying at all.
Babies cry for a reason,
and saying "don't just ignore that" is fair enough —
but yelling about it is going too far.
Someone's imagination is running way too wild.
Could they at least make the story sound a bit more natural lol
The real reason playground equipment gets removed from parks isn't because it's dangerous,
and the real reason events get cancelled
is complaints from toxic old people.
I figured it was because shady-looking young people gather around the swings at night and cause trouble.
That's not "toxic old people," that's "monster parent" (a term for overbearing, entitled parents) complaints…
Background and Talking Points on This Story
This kind of “trouble on the train” personal account is a staple genre frequently published by web outlets like Nikkan SPA! — often called “sukatto” (feel-good comeuppance) stories — and is typically narrated through pseudonymous, unverifiable characters. In this thread too, commenters focused less on debating the story itself and more on questioning the article’s credibility. “Usomatsu” is slang that originated on 2channel/5ch, traditionally used when a poster’s personal anecdote smells fabricated, though in recent years it’s increasingly used to suspect an article was auto-generated by AI. The complaint about the “old man = villain, woman = hero” framing is also a stock criticism routinely leveled at this genre of anecdote article, not something unique to this particular story. The tendency for criticism to pile onto the elderly likewise owes a lot to how casually the term “rougai” (a pejorative for elderly people regarded as a nuisance or burden to society) gets thrown around on 5ch, and it’s worth noting that this isn’t necessarily grounded in actual data about elderly people as a whole.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “👴 ‘Shut it up!’ — Elderly Man Hurls Abuse at a Crying Baby on a Train, Then Turns Tail and Flees After Three Women Give Him a Piece of Their Mind.”
