リモハラ

• Reading: リモハラ
• Romaji: rimohara
• Kanji breakdown: リモ (from リモート, remote) + ハラ (from ハラスメント, harassment) → remote harassment
• Pronunciation: /ɾi.mo.ha.ɾa/

Meaning

Remote harassment — invasive or inappropriate behavior targeting remote workers during video calls or digital communication.

リモハラ covers workplace harassment specific to remote work settings. This includes commenting on someone's home background on camera, requiring cameras to stay on for surveillance, making inappropriate personal comments about living situations, monitoring keystrokes or mouse activity, or treating remote workers unfairly compared to office-based colleagues. Like テレハラ, it's part of Japan's expanding harassment vocabulary that emerged from COVID-19 era remote work challenges.

Examples

1. ビデオ会議で部屋の中をわざわざ映させるの、リモハラだよね。 Making someone show their room on a video call is remote harassment, isn't it?
2. リモハラで一番多いのは、常時監視系らしい。 Apparently the most common type of remote harassment is constant surveillance.
3. 「家にいて楽でしょ」って言われるのも、ある意味リモハラだと思う。 Being told 'must be nice being at home all day' is a form of remote harassment too, in my opinion.

Usage Guide

Context: workplace, social media, news

Tone: critical, protective

Do Say

• ビデオ会議のカメラ強制ってリモハラにならない？ (Doesn't forcing cameras on in video meetings count as remote harassment?)
• リモハラに関する社内ルール、もっと明確にすべきだよ。 (We should make internal rules about remote harassment clearer.)

Don't Say

• 何でもリモハラと言いすぎると、必要な業務コミュニケーションまで萎縮する (Calling everything リモハラ can make people afraid to communicate about work at all)

Common Mistakes

• Confusing リモハラ with テレハラ — they overlap but リモハラ emphasizes video call and digital surveillance issues
• Not recognizing that well-intentioned questions about home situations can constitute リモハラ

Origin & History

Portmanteau of リモート (remote) + ハラスメント (harassment). Coined alongside テレハラ during the 2020 COVID-19 remote work transition. Covers a slightly different range than テレハラ, focusing more on the video call and digital communication aspects.

Cultural Context

Era: 2020 COVID-19 pandemic onset

Generation: All remote workers

Social background: Office workers who transitioned to remote work

Regional notes: Used across all of Japan. Reflects ongoing tensions about privacy and management boundaries in remote work.