I got inspiration for the title from this as given the structural issues within companies due to mismanagement, DEI and ESG pandering this might become a series in 2024..
There was a post preciously on this but in the past 2 days even more shit has happened that this train wreck deserves to be looked at more. To save the word limit I'll give 3 types of breakdowns to choose from for the current situation:
The more outsider friendly explanation of Critikal
The more indepth and updating videos of FalseeyeD, Rev says desu and Khyo
The spastic and autistic yelling of 4chan narrated by a parrot
That out of the way the latest dealings seem to be that there are third party sycophants attacking Doki to defend Nijisanji. It's hard to know if they're doing it for free like Reddit jannies or if they are paid actors in some respects whether literally or figuratively (by access). They're getting destroyed by community notes alone so not a big deal. But something that made this blow up again is that Doki had TWO suicide attempts with the second stopped after her parents spent hours searching for her along with her termination came 2 hours after her lawyer contacted them regarding the 'infamous' document.
I think minimum, Nijisanji EN branch might go, collectively they've lost over 200,000 subs, their stock price is down by more than 15% while Doki is over 550,000 subs in just a week! The more damming statement was from their CEO himself where he admitted they haven't managed the EN branch at all. I don't know how much this'll affect the Japanese branch which is their main money maker but they'll not be able to rival Hololive again after this (unless it turns out Hololive does human trafficking).
The biggest surprise is how many sponsors, game makers and merchandise companies have left contracts or refused to work with Nijisanji after this, some even hinting at future collaboration with Doki instead.
Meh, it'll take some time unless Nijisanji is more poorly run than I expected.
Companies don't go down nearly as fast as individuals do. People give way too much credit to ephemeral things like stock price drops. Temporary drops don't really matter, even significant-seeming ones. It remains to be seen whether that's actually permanent.
There's a chance the EN branch might go, but it'll likely be a while (at least several months to a year, maybe even 2) unless they really screw things up in the short-term.
They inadvertently admitted to leaking confidential material that was only meant for their lawyers to their livers, then lied about it afterwards.
They also publicly lied about paying art contractors along with screwing up NDAs that many came forward to say Selen/Doki paid them out of pocket.
It's 50/50 they do something dumb now that speeds up EN's collapse.
Livers should only get alcohol not paperwork, it handles the ink poorly haha
This entire kerfuffle seems like one massive preference cascade, given how quick it happened.
Going by alot of commentary from people who worked with Nijisanji, it seems like the company as a whole was massively unprofessional.
The big question that no one has an answer for is... why? This has been a long string of very public fuck-ups that no-one ever thought to come down on or reign in, and for what? A single streamer? WTF?
Plus, stuff like this doesn't come out of nowhere. You don't get a situation that results in someone almost being bullied into suicide - twice - out of nowhere. This says alot of things about Nijisanji EN corporate culture, and none of them good.
It'll be interesting to see what happens.
VTubing became a joke when it naturally went beyond being a humorous novelty and a tech advancement of streaming live motion capture against a body. By digging into the livestreamer space, it became another means to siphon money from simps and attention seekers, replete with all the flame wars, parasocial relationship poison (almost any Vtuber group), grasping at fetishes (Hololive) and thoting/camwhoring (VShojo). The excuses of likening these tubers to anime characters doesn't change my opinion of it either. There are still live actors behind the virtual masks, regardless if they're squatting in a chair.
I have absolutely no sympathy for anyone involved in this shit, excluding progenitors like Kizuna Ai, who got put through the wringer when the Vtuber spice started to flow
Don't think it's that complicated, they're just going through what YouTubers went through years ago where management companies need to justify their existence when it's easier to be independent.
Who knows, Nijisanji might end up being the next Machinima in the future, they're run bad enough that it could be a possibility.
I know it didn't have much to do with the initial topic, I was just making a separate point on this because I have a hobby in anime/manga artspaces. Vtubers are everywhere there and it gets shoved in my face all the time. I can't tell how many times I see decent artists waste their talents simping for these actors.
I'm simply annoyed every time something with these groups becomes a big deal when it's just things that always happen, whether it be Coco getting kicked out of Hololive CN (government pressure to censor, oh noes!!), Pikame getting bullied off the Internet (Cyberbullying?!), Nijisanji being mismanaged (any online grift since the first Dotcom bubble).
I know people are fascinated by this stuff and I wouldn't personally get into it myself, but I'm kind of forced to know about it... Yeah Nijisanji will probably one of those bad companies that doesn't implode entirely, but limps along
It depends as it'll be a mixture or worse but better with vtubers?
Let elaborate with on word: AI. We are probably going to get MORE vtubers especially from corporations that are AI, these will be the figureheads for the company on promotional materials like how everyone was going gaga for that Samsung inspired one. It means they can have a figurehead that's cute to look at not creating scandals and can apologise on their behalf fir their fuck ups.
This'll depreciate the niche qualities of vtubing so it'll not be an easy simping tool anymore. I honestly think the reason why it's more popular is modern women MADE themselves so unappealing that guys would prefer a literal animated character over looking at one over a stream.
The funny thing is they're using the real vtubers as training data for the AI vtubers. Though I do think the fact that it's a real person adds to the charm, so I don't think they'll go away entirely.
It'll be interesting to see if AI takes away from having to hire people to interact with an audience. It can eliminate liability from any psychological consequences the performers suffer.
Don't forget idol 'culture'
Throw that in the mix too and it's pure poison.
I'd rather have a girl show she's mentally unstable from the get go (Cough Phase Connect) then pretend to be an idol and hide she's mentally unstable till it's too late..
I'm just a casual clip watcher on occasion, but I do like the yabbit and I do have a favourite tard.
Parasocial relationship was my go-to word since it's actually been identified as an issue in this terminally online era.
"Idol culture" is probably a better term for it. Combines the parasocial aspect with the flamewars.