On the surface, its just streaming. You find a "personality" you like and watch them do their thing. Except in this case they are openly playing a "character" with all the benefits that provides over basic facecam streaming. If you don't watch streamers a lot, you won't watch vtubers neither.
In reality it usually comes down to even more obsessed parasocial relationships. Its closer to a mix of the girl-produced ASMR industry with the Japanese Idol culture than anything else.
So if you never got into Idols or wierd ASMR stuff, you'd never like most vtubers. The handful of exceptions might be people who like Mori's music or the edgy memesters like Pipkin who can appeal outside those bubbles.
That is a good way to describe it, probably most streaming from personalities just isn't for me and that is part of it for sure.
I definitely see the idol culture in it, I suppose it was only a matter of time as technology has improved to make anime girls "real" to some level as I have seen they do 3d stuff too and not just stationary stuff.
So who are the people vtubers are marketing to?
I know about vtubers, I know the name of some vtubers, but every single one of them is completely unwatchable for me even when I have tried.
I'm a weeb, I'm a single guy, if I am not the target demographic who is?
This is a genuine question to you guys because god damn are vtubers something I really don't understand.
On the surface, its just streaming. You find a "personality" you like and watch them do their thing. Except in this case they are openly playing a "character" with all the benefits that provides over basic facecam streaming. If you don't watch streamers a lot, you won't watch vtubers neither.
In reality it usually comes down to even more obsessed parasocial relationships. Its closer to a mix of the girl-produced ASMR industry with the Japanese Idol culture than anything else.
So if you never got into Idols or wierd ASMR stuff, you'd never like most vtubers. The handful of exceptions might be people who like Mori's music or the edgy memesters like Pipkin who can appeal outside those bubbles.
That is a good way to describe it, probably most streaming from personalities just isn't for me and that is part of it for sure.
I definitely see the idol culture in it, I suppose it was only a matter of time as technology has improved to make anime girls "real" to some level as I have seen they do 3d stuff too and not just stationary stuff.