One of the ways that my life changed the most in 2020 was starting a new routine of watching YouTube before going to bed thanks to my discovery of ASMR videos that help me fall asleep. Before that I never really watched anything on YouTube, not crazy cat videos, Dude Perfect trick shots, unboxing videos, or gaming streams. Nothing. And just when I was learning the lay of the land a disruptive new trend comes along that could change everything: vTubers. Virtual avatars replacing their human counterparts and forever changing the YouTube landscape.
As Polygon puts it:
“Content creators using representational avatars is not, in itself, a particularly new phenomena, though the mutations in technology arguably are. The use of a virtual avatar was at one point prohibitively expensive, requiring industrial motion-capture setups, and professional teams of cinematographers and software engineers. But the same effect can now be achieved with a virtual reality setup and software suite that cost hundreds or thousands of dollars instead of hundreds of thousands. You can now theoretically make a virtual avatar like Calliope Mori’s with something as simple as a smartphone app and laptop. By and large, developments in streaming and content creation software have brought the technology into the hands of individual content creators and smaller agencies.
The first known instance of this phenomenon is largely credited to U.K. vlogger Ami Yamato, who launched her YouTube channel in late 2011. But what’s now commonly considered a ‘Vtuber’ has less in common with her Pixar-like 3D avatar, and more with the fully anime style Kizuna Ai, a virtual idol made by a Japanese production company that now boasts over 4 million YouTube subscribers.”
A decade later the vTuber sensation could reach a peak with everyone getting in on the act, following in the footsteps of famous stars like Pokimane who have kickstarted the trend once again.
“Usually, when streamer Imane “Pokimane” Anys goes live on Twitch for her 5.5 million followers, you can expect to see her bubbly face anchoring the broadcast as she reacts to the game she’s playing, or responds to the endless flood of comments. But midway through September, the popular Twitch streamer debuted a pastel-colored 3D anime model of herself, which was rigged to follow her real-life movements.
In other words, Pokimane was dipping her toes into the world of ‘Vtubing,’ or entertainers who do livestreams or YouTube videos as virtual girls. While the practice isn’t new, in recent years Vtubing has dramatically risen in popularity and visibility to the degree that there are social media accounts dedicated to sharing funny Vtuber moments.
On YouTube, videos with Vtubers can get hundreds of thousands of views. And where eyeballs go, money soon follows. Virtual YouTuber agency Hololive recently announced a line of English-speaking personalities based on mythical creatures, in an effort to better cater to the market outside of Japan. Vtubing is a genre of its own, and some people devote their entire careers to it.
Pokimane’s livestream, by contrast, was more of an experiment. The gregarious personality isn’t pivoting to full-time anime girl livestreams anytime soon, but she did say that she’ll likely use her Vtubing avatar when she does streams without a camera broadcasting her real-life face.
‘No-cam streams are so comfy,’ Pokimane said during the livestream. ‘Especially because, I don’t know, sometimes it gets tiring to get people comment on you. I’d rather have people comment on this cute little anime drawing of me, you know?'”
One of the reasons why I haven’t started my own YouTube channel yet is because I’m too shy to go in front of the camera. But what if I didn’t have to go on camera? What if I could hide behind a virtual avatar? All of a sudden the awkwardness goes away. It no longer matters how I dress or what I look like. The only thing that matters is the content of my message. It may sound counterintuitive but hiding behind a virtual representation of myself could be the one thing that finally allows me to come out of my shell and be my true self.
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