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[VTuber] thread: Yeah, Minecraft is totally a genre of anime.
MrBlarney
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
VTubers are online streamers who present themselves in the form of animated avatars. Everything that your typical YouTube or Twitch streamer does, you'll also see VTubers do.
Gaming streams? Of course.
Chat streams? Yep.
Art streams? Indeed.
Singing streams? Lovely.
So there's really not much different between virtual streamers and other traditional streamers in the activities they perform. There are cases where streamers have switched between virtual and real modes, or who stream in both modalities. But one benefit of the virtual streaming mode is that the virtual avatar allows for a streamer to have a distinct break between the performance they put on stream and the rest of their life they have off-stream. It can provide a mask to let those that would otherwise be too shy or afraid to stream to be able to connect with others. This thread is here to primarily share the fun that can be had with this new and growing form of entertainment. Welcome to the rabbit hole, enjoy your stay.
No overview of VTubers is complete without mentioning Kizuna Ai. While Ai's not the first to produce online content through a virtual avatar, she is by and large the origin point for the modern idea of what it means to be a virtual entertainer, and the origin for the term "Virtual YouTuber" in the first place. Her intricate 3D tracking, including through full concerts, are a notably strong aspect of her content. While Ai has paused her regular video content following her annual "hello, world" concert at the end of February 2022, she still has other projects in progress outside of the YouTube space; she remains a major icon of VTubers as a whole.
One of the two major Japanese-based VTuber agencies, Nijisanji made its mark as a major force in establishing the current formula for VTubers: entertainers who broadcast live-streamed content using 2D avatars. The agency now hosts more than 150 talents across their domestic branch and their growing international branches. While the number of "livers" (that's live-ers, not the bodily organ) within the organization may seem intimidating, the large number of streamers also presents an incredibly diverse variety of styles and interests. Notably, while many groups are generally composed of female-presenting avatars, Nijisanji has a large contingent of male streamers under their umbrella. The (re)launch of a dedicated English-speaking branch from May 2021 presents an easy entry point into the group.
The other major Japanese-based VTuber agency, and arguably the agency with the largest international reach. Overseas clip translation and the opening of their English-speaking branch in September 2020 established hololive as many international viewers' reintroduction to VTubers outside of Kizuna Ai. The "idol" moniker given to their talents might bring to mind singing, dancing, and variety shows, but most of hololive's talents are not particularly different from other VTubers in what their general activities look like. The "idol" label does mean that they play things a bit safer than other major groups, but it also makes them a generally easy starting point if you're getting familiar with what VTubers do.
Side note: while hololive is most-known for their female streamers under the hololive name, the agency also has a male streamer branch, holostars. As of July 2022, holostars has also opened up an English-speaking group of male VTubers.
VShojo is an English-based collective, and the newest agency covered in this list, having been established in November 2020. However, the agency carried a lot of presence straight from its inception, as most of its founding talents were already known from their independent VTubing activities and close associations with one another before the group was formally announced. As of July 2022, VShojo has also added Japanese-speaking talents to their roster. The VShojo members usually livestream on Twitch, with their YouTube channels generally focused on archives and clips. VShojo also has a bit of a reputation for being quite a bit spicier than the two other Japanese-based agencies highlighted above.
There are dozens of other VTuber groups out there, and thousands of individuals who stream with a virtual avatar. While there are still costs to be had in avatar artwork, model rigging, and software, those costs are not so insurmountable that VTubing is such an exclusive group. It is increasingly becoming just another style for content creators to put a face forward to their audience.
Links to Kizuna Ai's YouTube channel, and the websites of the three spotlighted groups, are embedded in the image headers above. There's way too many other individuals and groups to start linking without things getting too bloated or inevitably leaving some notable VTuber out. There is a Virtual YouTuber Wiki on fandom.com, but it's a bit of a jungle.
For the most part, discovery comes from word of mouth; in this thread, we're mostly sharing streams and clips of our favorite talents. Stream links and clips are also an invaluable resource for VTubers outside of the major groups to get discovered and access to a larger audience. Post your favorite indie, and maybe you'll give them a much appreciated new viewer to enjoy what they do.
You might also try diving into holodex.net, which provides a directory to current and upcoming VTuber streams. While it started out as a hololive-centric resource, it now covers Nijisanji and many smaller-group and independent VTubers on the YouTube platform. It's also a useful resource for those who are well into the VTuber rabbit hole, for watching multiple streams at the same time, such as during collaborations.
Minimize discussion of VTuber identities - In many cases, the Vtuber character exists as a separation between the streamer's front-facing entertainer persona and their private life away from the screen. Other VTubers will retire a persona to take up the mantle of a new character, as is often the case when someone joins a VTuber group. A general rule of thumb used by the community at large is to spoiler any discussion that connects an individual talent to their alternative faces. While there are different degrees of secrecy in the connection between a streamer's multiple roles (with a few exceptional cases where there's little to no barrier), it's still a good rule to follow in general, as different people interested in VTubers will have different levels of engagement and desire in that kind of information. If you're interested in a talent's work at large, that's research you can put in on your own time.
Source your translations - A lot of the more prominent VTubers hail from Japan, and so naturally stream and post on social media in Japanese. If you're posting a translation of a VTuber tweet, try to source your translation. This is especially important if you're relying on a machine translation: while services like Google Translate and DeepL have made great improvements in recent years, they still have lapses in context that can mislead or misinform. So citing your sources can be useful so that an appropriate weight can be put on how valid the translation is.
Avoid spreading unconfirmed rumors - Entertainment and being in the public eye brings with it the potential of unwanted drama, whether you're behind a virtual avatar or not. So if you want to discuss something of a serious nature, double-check that you're taking from reliable, and ideally, direct sources. Serious news is already tough enough to deal with on its own, but having it come from a place of uncertainty or rumors can bring about an needless and unnecessary rise in emotions.
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Featuring such normal chef comments as "Jesus Christ! Is it gonna blow??"
Sounds like what I say every time I cook, dunno what’s wrong with that.
this is literally the perfect first post right after the introduction to what vtubers are
we all know this ends with rosemi breaking the fire extinguisher
There's a lot of speculation about this, but since the reason hasn't been announced officially, who can say. By process of elimination, it must be a decision specifically from Holo EN's side or Niji EN's side, as many of the other branches of those corporations HAVE collabed.
But some poor meal decisions were made before the stream and she threw up.
Now she's playing Minecraft.
We know it's not just HoloEN because an Ollie/Selen Apex collab got blocked/canceled/whatever. But absent any other hard info, who's blocking who and why can't be definitively determined.
Nope, only one I know of was the Ollie Selen Apex collab which got cancelled at the last minute.
From what I remember, only an Ollie/Selen Apex collab that was cancelled.
Ayo?
We are Fighting Dreamers.
1. Hololive sees NinjiEN as a direct competitor with HoloEN and doesn't want to boost them.
2. Ninjisanji is worried that for some reason NinjiEN crossing over with Hololive would trigger the Chinese antis and invite a wave of unsubscriptions and harassment. Selen is Chinese and has a lot of Chinese fans, and I'm assuming family in China, so negative attention from nationalists could possibly have worse repercussions than what Hololive experienced. I don't know why this concern would only constrain NinjiEN crossovers though so this theory could be total bullshit.
Anyway... fuck the corpos.
It's specifically where a lot of the most toxic hololive jp fandom is, the people who tore zeta to pieces for daring to associate with jp holostars, and a very vocal section who (to this day!) still see nijisanji as The Usurper Company
They've been very normal about Niji EN and Yugo very specifically, so I don't blame anycolor management from potentially considering the whole thing too much hassle when they already have to worry about that culture affecting their own fandom
Like half of Fubuki's live audience disappears on her when collabs with Oga or one of the other stars, Bae just roasted her chat for being afraid of cooties(again...), the ID branch is very strict when it comes to telling what they can and cannot do. It's not that people don't care they just know where the lines are and that crossing them gets them banned and they will lose their 1 year membership badge.
Edit: Hell go to the Reddit post about the Calli golf tweet. Magni is making a killing on Copium tonight. And the English fandom is the one that claims to be above the idol bullshit.
Honestly, this whole tangent has got me wondering if Ironmouse avoids a fair bit of this shit because either she or someone close two her knew how to use the Americans with Disabilities Act. A ton of shitty companies hate that act because it has some fucking teeth, there is no "here's a slap on wrist for violating this law," it's more of a "hope you have access to a good wheelchair because we're breaking both your fucking knees asshole." So it's a great card to not only prevent management from throwing one under the bus because they think the assholes will yield better income, but possibly even force YouTube, Twitch, TicTok and Twitter to do something about some users. You can claim that as a individual with a disability, that those platforms are in violation of ADA if they refuse to anything about those users because a enough of them will use abliest slurs that the platform dare not risk it. Probably can even nail a few of the assholes that don't use the slurs or attack you for your disability because again, the platforms would rather not have a public fight in court over ADA violations because they chose not to ban some pretty blatant assholes. You get a couple of the fuckers nuked and it makes them back off for a bit until some dumbass new or old decides they'll try fuck around with the electric fence, at which point the lesson is re-establish and the cycle begins anew. Problem is it's only an option if you have a disability and are public having it.
Not sure if Japan has any such laws. I'm kind of thinking maybe no, but then again Vshojo probably hasn't had a need to fight those assholes and their boards outside of the shit they start via e-mail, Youtube, reddit, twitter, TikTok and Twitch. I highly doubt such boards aren't attacking Ironmouse. If Japan does and I were Vshojo, I would totally look into whether they could use that to rip 2ch and other boards apart because it's apparent that those assholes will be an issue in the future.
Also "is Japanese chans" falls flat since Niji and Holo JP collab all the time! Even on big merch push events like 3d concerts or birthday streams. Ditto ID. Is just EN management of either Holo or Niji being weird about it for whatever dumb reason they have.
Also, the biggest part the "idol" label on Hololive, much more important than "being seiso" (that talents constantly mock) is producing music. Like, is traditional at this point that even small indies do song covers, but Hololive as a brand does A LOT of original music, a lot more focus on 3d concerts, and their top music talents have topped charts. Merch and music are far bigger income sources and, more importantly, far more safer, since there's a long and bitter story of YouTube screwing over streamers repeatedly because the algorithm pixie juice decided to.
Anyways there are totally niji and hololive collabs but you'll notice that (with one notable exception, shotuout to yashiro) they're usually same gender collabs nowadays, subaru doesn't do belmond collabs, etc (and generally there's fewer than there used to be, you're never going to see the big cross company koshien that is still to date the biggest vtuber stream ever)
There have already been adjustments made to make the work easier to do under the pressure of the toxicity that's underneath the surface, they've got the staff and the systems in place, and both EN branches might not feel like it's worth their time
BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, third place will be the fight for the right to be the real Vox Akuma, as Shiina takes on sasaki
Nyanners in the fight of her life.