Draft:Virtual YouTuber

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Osanai Nazuna: A VTuber based on the mascot Nazuna from the gacha game Flower Knight Girl.
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A Virtual YouTuber (Also known as a VTuber or VStreamer[note 1] and sometimes abbreviated to VT) is a type of content creator that uses motion tracking to animate a 2D or 3D avatar in real time rather than using a traditional webcam, to make videos or stream on either YouTube or Twitch. Originally starting in Japan, they became popular in the West during the pandemic around the end of 2020 when two of the main leading companies in this business, Hololive & Nijisanji, opened their English divisions.

VTubers typically entertain their audiences by singing, playing video games (Mostly MMOs like Valorant, Dead by Daylight & Minecraft or Gacha games like Genshin Impact & Granblue Fantasy), reacting to videos,[1] posting on Twitter (mostly stupid shit[note 2]) or do other things like spreading weird conspiracy theories[2] for example. It should come to no surprise that the majority of their fanbase are either weeaboos,[note 3] frog posters or other very fun groups who like to look up what their "Oshi"[note 4] did before becoming a Virtual YouTuber or posting private information, such as r/VirtualYoutubers on Reddit & /vt/ on 4chan.

The VTuber industry has been plagued with controversies on both sides of the Pacific. For one, many of them have bad sleeping and eating habits due to them being required to stream for a lot of hours (Japan Timezone, in most cases) for these companies. On the other hand, the VTubers themselves aren't saints either. Most notably the corporate VTubers (or Corpos for short) and the big indie ones that want to be on good footings with them are all a bunch of stupid edgelords. Both the fanbase as well as the bigger names in the industry also like to spew out hateful stuff like kink shaming, slut shaming, furry bashing, transphobia, homophobia, queerphobia, racism, anti-Semitism, ableism, sexism & various slurs;[note 5] only to say that they were "only joking" after getting criticism.

YouTube seems to be perfectly okay with this since they have bigger fish to fry,[3] while Twitch has banned some of them but only for a short time and either for something that goes against their ToS[4] or for other reasons.[5]

But remember, it's all about wholesomeness! And normalizing Incel speech, degeneracy,[note 6] stuff from this list, and horniness.[6] Lots and LOTS of horniness.[7] Dear goat, are these people horny.[8]

Origins[edit]

Its origins go all the way back to the 1980s with something called "Virtual Idols". A Virtual Idol is an anime character who's an idol singer in said anime they're in. Examples of such characters would be Lynn Minmay, EVE (a Virtual AI), Sharon Apple (an incomplete program whose appearance is projected as a hologram via a blackbox with a build-in red sensor) & Fire Bomber (a rock band) from the anime series Macross.

In 1995, Japanese Talent Agency Horipro created Kyoko Date (伊達杏子), the first CGI idol with many advanced computer graphics. She was largely inspired by the success of aforementioned anime and several dating sim games[9]. Unfortunately, technical limitations like her movements (also known as uncanny valley) would result in her completely vanishing from the scene. Kyoko would reappear in 1999 under the name "Diki" (디키),[10] releasing her album Between in South Korea.[11] She would eventually vanish again, after gaining no mainstream success from this album.

Audio manufacturer Yamaha would release a voice software program called "Vocaloid 2" in 2007. One month later, this would be used by Crypton Future Media to create a software voicebank and its own virtual idol mascot who would end up becoming very popular in the years to come, namely...

Hatsune Miku[edit]

"Just because I'm a goat doesn't mean I can't be a fan of Miku, Bah-Bah-Baka!"

On the 31st of August 2007, Crypton Future Media created a mascot called Hatsune Miku, a 16 year-old virtual 3D pop idol built with the Vocaloid 2 software, who would have her first virtual live concert in 2009.[12] Her voice banks were provided by voice actress Saki Fujita. Originally, she was aimed at professional producers. What they didn't except, however, is that she would gain such a massive boom in popularity with the amateur industry as well as with anime fans and, sadly enough, with the weeaboo crowd.

Her popularity led to many different kinds of merchandise, such as her own series of rhythm games called Project DIVA, a freeware animation program called "MikuMikuDance" (MMD), a racing motorcycle in 2013 for TT Zero, a sportscar in 2018 for the Fuji Speedway world tournament, another bike, a computer with a figurine of hers in it[13], backpacks and whatever the fuck this is supposed to be...

Her success would inspire others to take it a step further. In 2014, Holotech Studios would start a crowd fundraiser on Indiegogo for their new software program called "FaceRig"[14], which captured emotions and facial expression in real time via webcam and would end up being released on Steam. The Live2D software was released in the year that followed. A company by the name of Activ8 would use this software to create the first VTuber in late 2016.



Kizuna AI[edit]

Kizuna AI, the first VTuber.

On 29 November 2016, Activ8 created Kizuna AI; the first VTuber,[note 7] voiced by a woman named Nozomi Kasuga, to make her debut on YouTube & China's own YouTube called Bilibili. She's also the one who started calling herself a "Virtual YouTuber", leading to the term getting popularized and being shortened to "VTuber" later on. She was the first VTuber to get 1 million subscribers on YouTube by mid December 2017 and even reaching the 2 million mark by July 2018.

In 2019, she was given her own separate agency as her success would come with a total fiscal loss of 675 million Yen ($6.6 million USD).[15] By 2021, she was the second VTuber to reach 3 million subscribers and again in 2024.

An interesting thing to know about Kizuna is that she did not jump on the edgelord train and went more into her singing & voice acting career than playing video games. This became more obvious when Anycolor Inc. & Cover Corp. opened their VTuber agencies, Hololive Productions & Nijisanji, in 2018. To give you an example of the direction this industry went and the kind of people they started to attract, here are some reactions from gamers when seeing Undyne's death scene in the video game Undertale (spoilers ahead).[16] And here's how Hololive JP's VTubers reacted.[17][note 8]

But, at least it's in Japan and not something that would ever become popular in the west. Unless some worldwide disaster happened that would lead to lots of people losing their jobs and force them to stay home for the next 2 years until some antidote would be manufactured...

Oh, wait. That actually did happen...

COVID and the VTuber invasion[edit]

You will soon have your God, and you will make it with your own hands.
—Echelon III: Morpheus, Deus Ex[18]


Where the magic happens[edit]

All that glitters is not gold[edit]

(In)famous VTubers[edit]

See also[edit]

External links[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. Those that, mostly or exclusively, stream on Twitch, prefer to be called "Virtual Streamers" since they hardly or never use YouTube in the first place.
  2. There's a group of VTubers, named "VTweeters", that do nothing else than posting on Twitter for no fucking reason.
  3. A weeaboo is pretty much the incel version of an anime fan + that they are completely deranged from their own culture, obsessed with the "land of the rising sun", and hate the LGBTQ+ community & feminists (for some reason)...
  4. 推し, Japanese slang referring to a favorite member (usually of an idol group) or character. We'll get to the idol culture connection later.
  5. It should be noted that there are VTubers that don't do any of the aforementioned things or are even against it, but that's a very small group and they hardly get any subscribers on YouTube because of this.
  6. Both VTubers AND their fans seem to see this as a compliment for some weird reason.
  7. This title would actually have to go to a woman called Ami Yamato, but we'll get to her later...
  8. We at RationalWiki would like to apologize for any high-pitched ear-deafening sounds you might hear in the second video. In case you already saw this video before seeing this note, then we hope you don't end up with Noise-induced hearing loss or NIHL for short.

References[edit]