涙活 = "monetizing the tears"?


In Kanojo Okarishimasu (aka Rent-a-Girlfriend) S3E03, a hyperactive zoomer
girl (who's also a youtuber) named Yaemori hears MC's situation, and starts
crying. Afterwords, she says "泣いた記念に写真撮るっス", and takes a selfie of her teary
face. As the anime often does, it also puts an extra note (in text) next to
her (usually used to represent added thoughts/feelings expressed by the
characters). This time, the added text says "涙活っス", but the official English
translation given for this is "Monetizing the tears".

[![Screenshot of the
moment.](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CKctI.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CKctI.png)

My question is, is this "monetizing tears" translation at all correct? Is it a
secondary meaning I'm not aware of? To my knowledge, 涙活 just refers to having
a good cry (and feeling better afterwards).

For what it's worth, I can confirm that the official English subtitles for
this anime are sometimes blatantly incorrect at worst, or extremely
overzealous some other times. Is this just an example of the subtitles being a
bit overzealous?

Edit: [here's the actual clip](https://i.imgur.com/XPfRAsH.mp4), if it helps.
IMO, even with the context, it seems like the localizers adding in stuff
that's not actually there or explicitly implied (i.e. being overzealous).




> To my knowledge, 涙活 just refers to having a good cry (and feeling better
> afterwards).

According to Wikipedia, this seems to be a word coined by a certain person
around 2010, but it has never been a popular concept in Japanese. FWIW, I
didn't know 涙活 at all, and thought this was a one-off parody of 就活, 婚活, etc. I
could easily guess it's "some activity" related to tears, but nothing more.

In situations like this, the original "correct" meaning of a word that even
Japanese people may not recognize is not important. What matters more is
preserving the comedic effect of the parody term 涙活.

If the fact that it's a joke is to be prioritized when translating,
"monetizing the tears" _could_ be a perfectly reasonable and professional
translation, as long as it fits the context. (Of course it would have been
best to come up with a similar parody in English, but it may be difficult...)

**EDIT:** I watched the actual anime clip. The likelihood that such a
character takes their own photos purely for stress relief is quite low, so it
doesn't fit the "official correct definition" of 涙活, anyway. I think the
translation of "monetizing" is a perfectly appropriate one that captures the
implication of the subtitle. I wonder if there is a better way to convey the
humor of this subtitle in one second.

