By applying an online ethnography of Japanese English learners/users, the present research explored the young participants’ English use in the extramural environment. The researcher conducted an extensive period of online observation of Social Network Services (SNS) and multiple semi-structured interviews. The analysis illustrates that their language practices online are shaped by multiple and intertwined discourses of online peer surveillance, English language learning, and Instagram as a site for expressing idealized selves .

The analysis of online posts and narratives reveals that while the participants remained highly conscious of their Japanese followers. The findings emphasized peer-power formation without the physical presence of power actors such as a teacher in a classroom. For example, they fear the potential perception by their peers as eigo ikiri (English show-off), a term commonly used among Japanese youth to refer to someone who shows off their English proficiency without noticing linguistic errors. Internalizing such power dynamics, they become the “watched” anticipating their peers’ evaluation and simultaneously the “watcher”. The findings of the study contribute to our understanding of how learners’ investment in English outside classrooms is influenced by language ideologies held by learners and their peers and the emerging power relationships among the learners themselves.