T w e n t y S i d e d
Alright. Go ahead and die of cringe or tell me to. We’re going to talk VTubers.
I, within the past year, have dropped my prejudices and gotten into several VTubers’s content. I don’t really watch Twitch so I’m relegated to watching clips and archives on YouTube. And I’ve learned some things that I think are worth discussing.
First and foremost, VTuber content is like anime. If you think it’s just lewd gooner content and write it off because of that then you’re missing out due to a false idea of what the whole sphere is.
VTubing, in it’s original form, wasn’t just a streamer using a persona to perform. VTubers were embodying a character and kept to that idea pretty firmly. That has relaxed in more recent years. There are still VTubers left that stick to their story but now for a lot of them, if not most of them, their digital models are a digital mask or webcam replacement.
Here’s the thing. Women can’t win on the internet in a lot of ways. I AM NOT SAYING MEN INHERENTLY HAVE IT EASY. It’s just that if you’re a woman that tries to use voice comms in nearly any game you’ll have half the lobby either flirting with you or attacking you all because your presence is less common. I have seen this first hand. Things have gotten better over the years, for sure, but I know multiple women that would rather just keep their voice to themselves and lose a competitive advantage all for the sake of peace of mind. Why bring this up? It is exponentially more true about peoples’ appearance. Not just women, but you could see why they’d feel even less comfortable.
Many of the folks I watch have voiced this opinion explicitly at certain times. They want to have fun and be funny but keep their appearance out of the conversation. There’s a large trend of those folks becoming more comfortable over time and showing their real selves on camera because they’ve had a chance to build confidence without that hurdle. And, it’s not just an appearance thing. With VTubing the streamer has lots of conveniences. The chief of which is anonymity and privacy. It’s a hell of a lot harder to dox or stalk someone when you don’t really know what they look like. And a big one that I love is the fun silly “costumes” that streamers can wear. You aren’t confined to the limits of cosplay or reality. Check out ChibiDoki or SunKenji. Their models typically resemble mutants. It’s dumb. It’s fun.
Ultimately I doubt I’m changing any of your minds on this, but I’d love if I’ve opened a door for you here. There’s VTubers for everything and every topic just like “fleshtubers.” If you look for one streaming a game you like or talking about a subject you like you’ll likely find one. They’re not all going to be winners, but such is life. And if you think the streamers are just weak or pathetic and need to nut up, relax. Some people just aren’t going to feel comfortable online. I would much rather have more people to watch, to talk to, and have fun with online if the alternative is trying to shame them for being shy or scared.
If you’re looking for recommendations, a good starting point if any of you are interested is looking up “Best of” highlight clips for various people you may have seen. Some of my favorites are Camila, Chibidoki, SunKenji, and Filian. I’m also a big fan of UwOsLab but he BARELY counts as a VTuber.
Starcraft: Bot Fight
Let's do some scripting to make the Starcraft AI fight itself, and see how smart it is. Or isn't.
Black Desert Online
This Korean title would be the greatest MMO ever made if not for the horrendous monetization system. And the embarrassing translation. And the terrible progression. And the developer's general apathy towards its western audience.
What Does a Robot Want?
No, self-aware robots aren't going to turn on us, Skynet-style. Not unless we designed them to.
Please Help I Can’t Stop Playing Cities: Skylines
What makes this borderline indie title so much better than the AAA juggernauts that came before?
The Opportunity Crunch
No, brutal, soul-sucking, marriage-destroying crunch mode in game development isn't a privilege or an opportunity. It's idiocy.
Who are you addressing? This and your previous entry don’t really seem to be intended for the regular readers of this blog…
Brother, I’m writing what I feel like writing. I avoid certain topics because of how inflammatory they can be but at the end of the day I’m still going to write on whatever topics I feel like. If you don’t like the topic I hit on during any given week, feel free to skip reading it. I have a lot of interests in various spaces. For example I’m a big NFL fan but I know better than to talk about that here. I think VTubers are about as out there as it gets for me, though.
No anger or rudeness intended in my response here by the way. I understand the frustration and/or confusion. I promise I try to keep in mind what you guys might be interested in reading about. I’m still new. I’m gonna mess up once and a while. Thank you for being patient.
Brother, you’re a bipolar lotr tourist that is into vtubers. The memes literally write themselves
Holy kek if I uploaded your last 3 posts anywhere else nobody would believe you’re not a caricature
Baby girl if you’re going to keep negging me with all these alt accounts at least log into different Italian VPN servers so it’s not so obvious. I missed you. I feel like we don’t talk anymore :(
I’m in dire need of attention :(
Don’t lash out at me like that, baby. This isn’t like you. Do you need a hug?
I need attention :(
“intended for” in my comment was badly worded, I should have said “addressed to”.
It’s not the topic I was commenting on, it was the particular line above: it reads like you assume that the regular readers of this blog look down on or are at the very least uninterested in VTubers. Which doesn’t seem at all like an accurate reading of the crowd to me! The previous post had a line that provoked a similar puzzled reaction in me, not because of the topic but because it was projecting an opinion on to the audience which I didn’t think was justified. Write about whatever you want, I will probably read it. :)
To reply to Paige’s comment below, by “regular readers” I mean those like myself who have been coming here regularly for years. I don’t comment much but I do tend to read them all, and I wouldn’t have made the above assumption about any of the frequent commenters…apart from that one troll, obviously.
Hey no problem here, man. I understand. Tone is really hard to convey in a text format. I made the wrong read. Thanks for the clarification :D
Not really sure “…the regular readers of this blog…” is doing the lifting, or communicating the idea, you think it is.
I need attention :(
Please give me the attention I require :(
This something I’ve been thinking on a lot recently, too. VTubers’ content seems to be exploding on YouTube, although part of that is once you get something in your algorithm it reinforces itself (and therefore you see more of it.)
I did content as a VTuber several years ago. I’m not going to claim I was one of the first, although relatively-speaking that may have some merit. BUT I got the idea from other people who were doing it, and there were tools popping up specifically designed for creating animated avatars. They were *just* starting to point at the concept of VTubers then. Life ended up getting in the way and I haven’t returned to it, but it was a lot of fun.
I’ve had limited run-ins with VTubers. A Twitch stream ended and redirected to a VTuber once, the most memorable bit of which was her trying to cross her eyes and finding out the VTuber animation didn’t allow it.
There was also the clip of Jared Leto doing an interview with, I assume a member of Hololive, and you can see the life drain out of him as he visibly recalls the career trajectory that brought him to this end.
There was also the VTuber who taught Japanese, whose name I can’t recall and who died in like 2021 so all their videos are buried deep in the belly of the algorithm now.
My biggest take is that if you don’t want your face in front of the camera, you can just… not put it there. You don’t have to have a distracting cartoon in its place. The screen can use that space for other things.
I get your point but at the same time streams without facecams or vtuber models tend not to do very well
Indeed. Streams are usually more about the parasocial relationship of hanging out with the host and the chat, than whatever game is being played, and even when they are focused on whatever’s going on in the rest of the screen, it’s usually to give their own reactions or commentary. This is massively enhanced by a visible avatar, or alternatively, takes a huge penalty without one. News and sports broadcasts almost always have some sort of host’s face on screen at any time, only cutting away to focus on full-screen footage for fairly brief moments. If it’s live, people expect to see the live host.
If you want stuff without a visible host, that’s basically all prerecord VODs. I think the term “VTuber” is actually a misnomer by now, as even if the tech started on youtube, the OP itself here is even referring to it entirely as a streaming phenomenon. Youtube can have no-face documentary style voiced-over videos, or even just normal game playthroughs with voice commentary and no video, and indeed having the live PnP from a stream is actually pretty weird on those (particularly when it’s a recording of a twitch stream posted to youtube and thus lacks the chat log so you miss most of the interaction, as LRR does). But a live avatar rig is for live streaming, and (while I’m not exactly aware of the overall streaming space) I’ve never even heard of a successful host-based stream that doesn’t have a *visible* host. Sure it’s technically, theoretically possible for a group to bond with a non-visible host, but the massive disadvantage will mean that community is just unavoidably much smaller than it could be.
That last sentence is exactly my own thoughts, when I saw vTubers. After at first wondering what the term meant, and how that was unique beyond general YouTube videos that don’t feature the face of the narrator. Why would I prefer to watch an avatar that moves in a somewhat unnerving way instead of just seeing some edited video content instead, in a video. For the brief time I watched his content, I had no issue with a YouTuber like RobotHead, whom I didn’t consider a vTuber, having a Robot-ey face there not doing a whole lot. But take someone like Zenny, that seems like an interesting animation – a robot talking and then doing stuff in cutscenes. And then someone like Dunkey has interesting footage instead. What I’ve seen in looking up vTubers relatively briefly as a concept, looks like it’s primarily about overt parasocial engagement with a streamer, and an array of anime breasts and hyper-juvenile (baby) voices, or a disconcerting combination of the two (and the baby cat sort of teeth thing) which gets in the way (for me) even if, as my friend who watches them says, the characters have a variety of personalities. I’d rather just look up pictures of attractive people separately to enjoying video or streaming content. I’m no stranger to realising that I use gaming podcasts and videos as a companion to stave off a feeling of isolation when alone in my house, but the sort of vTube content I’ve seen is a step too far, it looks overtly designed to engender the combination of belonging and attraction that underpins engagement while lonely. And again, it’s just not very interesting to see the avatar. In some cases I don’t favour videos where it’s just someone’s face too close to the camera anyway, avatar or otherwise, unless I like the expressiveness of the creator, or am ambivalent towards it – I don’t need to watch his face, I can listen to it as audio. Saying that, it was always nice watching Angry Joe’s expressions when he’d get annoyed, for example. Vtuber content just seems like a significantly worse version of most other formats, in an already saturated market of video content.
Honestly I think that’s a fair read. I don’t agree but I just think at a certain point it comes down to personal preference. I’ve always preferred long-form content without facecam, for example. One of my favorite YouTube channels for the longest time was SuperBestFriendsPlay, and a more current favorite is OneyPlays. A webcam for them would just be a distraction. But I have to admit I kind of need a face or representation of one to if the content creator is solo. Probably because it feels more like a hangout with someone, maybe? It likely is a parasocial thing as you suggest. Figuring out the answer to that question is for someone who can read and write above an 8th grade level though, not me. :P
Ah, comments are active now (they weren’t when I checked last night).
I dig all the various positives of the VTubing concept, the problem (aside from my content needs already being met) is that what little VTube I’ve seen is profoundly uncanny to me. In theory I should love how tech is now advanced enough you can rig up a 3d avatar to match your movements and let you be who or whatever you want. In practice I found the movements extremely offputting. It’s possible that people with higher quality dedicated rigs might avoid that, but I’m skeptical, as even the most detailed mo-cap and models you might find in a videogame or movie are still done by actors doing takes: the continuous subtle movements of a normal person moving normally, rather than acting a deliberate scene, are not something my brain expects or wants to see on 3d models. Lower fidelity flash/cartoon style charicatures might actually work better, but then you lose the whole point of having more detail and animation than a lip-flat cutout with a handful of frames.
Or in short, from what I’ve seen it’s just not for me. But I agree that it’s a great tool for people who want to present themselves differently and said people can make all the same range of content as anyone else, so go off and get some.
As for the meta-commentary- Shamus would randomly post rants on whatever what on his mind too. Everyone with a space to talk to people does that. This post in particular is about overcoming their own preconceived notions and trying something new on the internet, and then presenting those findings. “Hey guys, you probably think this stuff is dumb, but I tried it and it’s pretty cool actually.” That’s the distillation of all nerd culture, all niche cultures, compared to the nebulous ‘average person’. What could be more appropriate for a nerd blog?
The more motion capture people try to do for movement does tend to look worse. At least in the current movement trends. I see some VTubers who capture hand location and attitude, but the arm is fixed at the elbow, meaning the forearm just follows the hand movement. I personally prefer VTubers that focus only on face movement capture and leave the body alone. Some have it rigged that gross body movements cause certain actions, like dropping the model out of frame, or zooming in and out. That mostly works OK. When I Vtubed, almost all my movements other than eyes were pre-programmed and activated by shortcuts. Made for smoother, planned movements.
That makes me think of how various games have included more and more emotes for your characters to act out, sometimes becoming a language unto themselves, other times just letting you make your customized avatar do a thing. Souls games in particular what with fashion souls, though I’ve been disappointed as the offerings seem to have decreased and gotten more matching gimmicks of the current game and removing classics like Praise the Sun. Also Nightreign is far too fast-paced to do much of any communication or emoting at all, but that’s it’s nature of course.
The most advanced tech I’ve seen consistently used is by Filian. Her whole shtick is dancing and gymnastics so for her it’s pretty necessary. Apparently the tech is pretty common in VRChat nowadays which is crazy. It’s pretty neat to see how far consumer grade mo-cap has gotten.
And thank you for the support. I appreciate it more than you know.
I may check out this Filian then and see for myself.
(Should I say you’re welcome? I feel like the appropriate thing to do is be cool and not acknowledge it like it’s nothing ’cause to do otherwise might be embarrassing. But that also might degrade the point of the support. So instead I will boldly post a cringe-inducing parenthetical, matching the theme of the series).
I need attention :(
I mean, if the site just isn’t interesting to you anymore, you’re always welcome to leave. :P If you were here for the content that Shamus posted, well… He’s gone. That content isn’t going to be here anymore. So you either see if the new content is to your taste and stick around (and for the record, sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. I comment on things if I have something to say, or just read something else if I don’t), or you move on if it isn’t. That is the way of life. Things change, people come and go. If something just isn’t gelling with you anymore, then it’s time to move on.
I need attention :( Love you guys tho! :D
Aw, that’s sweet of you.
The only time I came across Vtubers was when TheDuelLogs did that for the “Staple or Stinker” series for some reason. They abandoned it quickly and went back to no-face content. For how serious the content is presented it is probably for the better.
Yeah it’s not a great presentation for certain personality types and content. Kind of like when true crime channels on YouTube try an get too cute and funny with it. It just clashes tonally.
I know of someone who was on camera for years but changed over to being a VTuber. Do to medical issues, Little Kuriboh was uncomfortable being on camera anymore and started using an avatar. It also lets them lean in to their voice work skill by using different avatars on-screen. I’m grateful for it as it’s kept one of my favorite people still producing content under difficult circumstances.
great example of the format being useful beyond just a fun little quirk too
I am feeling insecure. Please give me attention or I may cry :(