The creator, J-Taro Sugisaku, says that it was invented in Tokyo in 2006 by a group of bored men without girlfriends.
A report about the phenomenon in the Japanese magazine Weekly Playboy in 2006 was picked up by the English language web site Mainichi Daily News.
[2] This was followed by a segment of the BBC Three documentary show Japanorama in March 2007,[3] subsequently uploaded to YouTube and flagged as "inappropriate for some users".
[4] The Japanorama video was shown in May 2007 at the JACON 2007 convention in Orlando, Florida, and a spontaneous air sex competition ensued, footage of which also found its way to YouTube.
[5] In late January and early February 2007, a group of American black male teenagers calling themselves "Peer Pressure" produced two videos showing air sex set to music, published on YouTube under the user name "amp6".