An Announcement to Our Fans Regarding the Conclusion of Watson Amelia’s Channel Activities | hololive production
The official website of hololive production, a VTuber agency that consists of the talent groups hololive and HOLOSTARS.This page features the 'An Announcement to Our Fans Regarding the Conclusion of Watson Amelia’s Channel Activities' section of our websit...
Why do people like vtubers?
How are they different from normal youtubers?
I don’t understand why they exist (other than perhaps “shyness”), and I doubly don’t understand the fan culture that’s exploded around them. Are they supposed to be “cutesy”/“wholesome” twitch thots or something else entirely?
"What if anime girls were real?"
Basically. They are cute girls, usually with social awkwardness or mental issues, where they don't act like vapid attention seeking whores. Of course girls like that became vtubers too after it was huge, but they still plaster their face and tits on social media. Most of the big ones, JP, and corporate, still act true to being "anime girls in real life" and succeed because of it.
Cause alot of them are honestly entertaining. Chances are, if you're into something, you'll probably find a Vtuber that's also pretty enthusiastic about it.
Plus, the immediate chat feedback can lead to impromptu hilarity. So that's always fun.
Putting aside whales and simps, Vtubers can be... oddly wholesome, at times. I've got a meme stashed away somewhere of Mori Collipe(Hololive Vtuber) basically going 'Guys, don't donate if you don't have any money, spend responsibly, c'mon' with a random Twitch E-thot trying to shame and harass guys into giving her money. It's a weird contrast.
Rotten mean can be tasty if you cut away the rotten parts.
Anything is good if you specifically cut away the bad parts.
That’s a fair enough angle I can understand. Basically just streamers with privacy or some other personal concern now have an avenue to try to compete in this modern world. That’s whatever. And while I do see the same kind of issues across streaming in general (i.e. simping and pandering), they seem really pronounced here. I’m not totally sure why it feels that way. Maybe the use of the avatar is making me see it as inherently less “genuine”. Then again I’m the kinda guy who just can’t wrap my head around donating to 99.99% of streamers in general, but that’s just me. The few I can somewhat understand are the ones who produce something with some modicum of artistic or other merit. Independent journalists, Sam Hyde, those kinds of channels.
Any video game youtube channel is an act. Its not genuine anyways
Maybe I'm a little weird, but I don't see any difference between what Vtubers do than what some other streamers do - people like Zach Hazard and Accurize and Vaos don't even bother with avatars when doing their stuff.
I'd even go so far as to say what Vtubers do isn't that much different than what some radio announcers do.
But, like I said, I might be a little weird. I tend to focus on the voice, and if the voice and content isn't good, I just shrug and move on.
Then again, I never donate. But free entertainment is free entertainment...
Idealized Girl Syndrome, or whatever it's actually called if it has a name I didn't make up on the spot.
A bunch of lonely incels and other assorted losers form parasocial relationships with Vtubers (groomed into it by said Vtubers most of the time since many of them only do relationship content/asmr/thot streaming). Now there are some mostly normal Vtubers and a lot of normal people consume the content, but they are a minority share. I've dipped into it myself but only surface level.
The most I've ever dipped into it was clips of unhinged and deranged behavior from the weirdest of them like Pippa or Bao, they don't seem like they're into thot streaming and Pippa actually seems kinda based. I've never watched any streams or subbed to channels. It requires a time investment into these people that's obsessive imo, they want you to watch daily streams and I'm not obsessed with 2D idealized females.
Typing a big authoritative essay and concluding it with "I've never watched any of it" is really funny.
Is "experiential fallacy" a term, or does something similar exist? There probably should be a term for it.
Best one I’ve seen is “anecdata”. But frankly his opinion could have come to him in a dream for all I care, he’s basically the only one who’s shared his view openly in response to my questions, everyone else is just voting on his comment or telling me I don’t get it without telling me how I’m not getting it
Yeah, I only responded because MLGS' response implied "you don't actually watch this stuff, so your argument is invalid".
I'm tired of such responses since it's like saying how men have no right to speak about abortion because they've never experienced childbirth.
That’s funny, I thought you were making basically the opposite point, so thanks for clarifying
That’s kinda the vibe I got from what little I’ve seen of the phenomena. Like some kind of “irl waifu”, and since you can’t see her you’re obviously going to project onto her aspects of your “idealized girl”.
Then you add on top of that this weird “management” (pimp) system and it starts to just feel like twitch thots with extra steps
What is your definition of thot streaming? Because it kinda feels like a lot of people on the site defines 'thot streaming' as basically women streaming in general. In reality, vtubing, or at least corporate vtubing anyways, is an extension of idol culture, and to summarize vtubing as a whole, it's wrestling using anime avatars.
Huh…that’s a view I’ve never seen articulated before, I can kind of see what you’re saying, based on what little I know of things (also that kind of explains more the “manager” angle - they can set up “storylines” between the girls or whatever)… interesting to say the least but is that really the full story?
Basically, any time a woman streamer uses the fact she is a woman (explicitly or implicitly) to manipulate her male viewers into donating. This could be as basic as doing titty streams in hot tubs like used to plague twitch, or it could be a chick who always wears sweaters but emotionally manipulates her viewers with any of an infinite number of tactics (flirting for donos, grooming simps/white knights, leading on whale simps in dms, whatever)
Is that not basically like saying “is an extension of soft core porn culture”? Idol culture, like vtubing, is quite foreign to me, but my understanding is it is basically just soft core / “respectable” porn, and the girls often go into real porn after they age out. Correct me if I’m wrong please
Idol (performance/celebrity) and Idol (gravure) are different things. Although there are some blurred lines like some porn actresses debuting after quitting being an idol performer like you mention.
What’s the name of the numba 1 idol (performance/celebrity) magazine, so I can look at some covers. Because if they both involve young attractive girls in skimpy clothes, but some of them are pretending to sing, I don’t see much of a gap between the two. Much like “the pussycat dolls” or Sports Illustrated swimsuit editions, you can dress up soft core porn all you like, that doesn’t change the fundamental draw of the product
The fundamental draw of vtubers isn't anime tits though.
Even flesh-and-blood streamers are playing a character to some degree. From a slightly exaggerated version of themselves to someone like Dr. Disrespect. Hiding behind a jpg, model, or a mullet and shades are just different degrees of the same thing.
I get the impression there might be a heavy overlap with the DnD and MMO RPing groups too. Bunch of theater kids, basically.
This is the best answer, although someone unfamiliar with idols might not understand what it means.
Idols often play a character or persona in a more sanitized and scripted way vs. what you'd get from a regular streamer or entertainer. The very nature of vtubing is wearing an anime avatar, so it perfectly lends itself to idol culture and the expected facade. Add the anime aspect and some voice acting, and you have the perfect storm to bridge the gap between idols and existing anime fans.
Vtubing has become too broad to make sweeping generalization, but Hololive at least is essentially an idol organization. Maybe they're not everyone's cup of tea, but they uphold very high standards compared to your average Twitch streamer.
Don't make me tap the sign
...I wonder how many of them are actually guys using an AI voice.
Zentreya
A disgusting potential that had crossed my mind too. Given how lucrative the whole thing is, and how artificial it is at its core, I would be more surprised to learn it isn't happening relatively often
The thing is, a large number of Vtubers’ IRL identities are known, and many of the non-corporate ones even make appearances at conventions as themselves (albeit wearing face masks), and for the most part, female vtubers are attractive women who choose to go behind the avatar of the character for whatever reason, mostly either the sake of security or being introverts otherwise
Sure, like I said in my original question there are conceivable reasons why someone would want to be a streamer without necessarily linking their real face/identity to it. I get that much. What I don’t get is the fandom. It’s turning grown men into something more unrecognizable than fucking kpop fans. And it’s not even like “oh we’re getting a real glimpse at who this girl is, she’s 100% genuine and the anime avatar is just for personal reasons” - I guaran-fucking-tee these chicks, “corporate” or not, are not being honest about themselves and their lives. For the corporate ones, it’s probably written into their contracts that they can’t been seen in public with their boyfriend/husband, much less discuss their existence on stream.
Explain it to me please, how is this any different than being a pokimane simp but almost objectively gayer? I’m open to changing my opinion I’m just letting you know where it currently stands
Ehh? From hearing about things before the termination of Selen Tatsuki to now being an avid follower of vtubers since, it's weird, as I'd moreso classify the fandom of vtubers as more akin to sports teams, but even then, I don't see the vtuber fandom as being any more different to being a fan of any other streamer, like Ludwig, Moist Critikal, etc.
If 4chan and the girls' various previous accounts didn't exist, then I'd get this point, but because the Internet never forgets, it's actually very easy to discover who many vtubers used to be (assuming they were/are previously content creators), and digging into this rabbit hole has allowed me to see that a vast majority of vtubers are genuine, or at the very least the most amount of 'faking' they're doing is simply acting as their character.
With the boyfriend/significant other point, there are vtubers, such as Nyanners, formerly of VShojo, were the entire point of her channel was that her boyfriend was also a vtuber and that a bunch of her content was with her boyfriend, but since she left VShojo, I honestly haven't seen that much of her, but that's probably because she's always done a lot of IRL/facecam streams ever since she did her face reveal.
Regardless of that, like I said to someone else earlier, it's honestly not that hard to not just find out information about who vtubers were, but to tell whether or not someone's being genuine, but a lot of that has to do with how hard people like /vt/ on 4chan investigate vtubers to begin with, and the information that comes up. Then again, 4chan's always been somewhat unhinged, there are people who track streamers' periods.
From watching the content of vtubers on and off their other accounts, more vtubers are genuine than aren't, especially in Hololive, which it was discovered (and honestly makes sense with who've they have hired over the years and their own history) that Cover filters for agreeableness/vibes when it comes to their talents, and if you don't fit, you won't even make it past the first phase of auditions. Cover doesn't want 'cat fights' and it shows.
Alot of tranny Vtubers really don't hide it, though. It's VERY obvious.
Zentraya is probably the Ur example, though. It's weird.
It's a stupid line of thought tho
If male, bad because he's pretending to be a grill.
If woman but ugly, bad because she's tricking men with her beauty
If woman but pretty, bad because she's no different from other ethots
I'm the biggest weeb and usually defend that shit but it's pathetic how people actually watch them knowing they are just playing a character and trying to extract as many resources as they can from lonely mentally ill men.
The IRL twitch girls who we know exist because Twitch's admins use Twitch as a brothel? Absolutely.
Female vtubers? Not really, unless you're saying literally playing the character is 'trying to extract resources', and even on the playing a character front, the community that watches vtubers is very good at discovering when people are being disingenuous, as you can see with the downfall of Nijisanji's English branch.
Vtubers have to put some portion of their real selves into the character, or else it just falls flat completely, as seen with various smaller vtubers and their drama that I don't post here.
More importantly, most of the successful vtubers I have seen (especially with Hololive) actually have talent. Unlike the Twitch thots who just flash their boobs for money but have to have their boyfriend play the game and pretend they are doing it.
My hatred for women in general blinds me for any nuance that could be had. There is no way for me to believe they don't want to exploit lonely men.
I can see a good reason to keep your real life identity hidden while still giving the viewer a "face" to look at,especially if you start dabbling in political discussions. It's a bit more stimulating than watching someone's logo on your screen for 30 minute long form videos. That being said, the over the top anime waifu avatars are cringe to me and turn me off from the channel
They aren't. People have it in their head that they must be for some reason, but its literally just streaming but with a fake face cam. Its not that complicated.
A huge portion of it has crossed over with Idol culture from Japan because that's the companies who basically created the genre and invest all the big money into it.
But by its raw definition, and how its used for the 90% of them that aren't from one of the big companies, is literally streaming with a tiny little anime character instead of your face.
One of the first big English vtubers will no longer be streaming from the 30th, but this isn't the typical graduation as apparently she will still be working in the background. One of the more unique parts of Amelia's content was that she was always the most tech savvy member of Myth, in terms of doing experimental things to aid her content, such as having a studio in her own home for 3D streams.
I'm just curious what her being in the background actually means.
Never expected to see this here. I like Ame, she seems like a genuinely nice one which she had proven by helping everyone out in the first week even. I hope she is still in some regards "visible", maybe she's taking on a managerial/tech job for the western branch.
Doesn't look like she will taking on a manager role.
Ouch, welp. Sounds more like a lose freelance contract.
Pretty sad to hear this news. Ame has done so much for the sphere.
Watson Amelia, a member of the VTuber group hololive English, will conclude all of her channel activities on September 30th, 2024. This would include all regular activities including live-streaming on platforms such as YouTube, social media activities, live event participation, and the regular release of new merchandise.
Since her debut as a member of hololive English’s founding generation, hololive English -Myth-, she has actively provided her fans with unique content as well as participated in all sorts of activities beyond streaming that significantly contributed to spreading VTuber culture overseas. Though her channel activities will end, Watson Amelia will remain an affiliate of hololive production moving forward.
In line with this, the following services will come to a close.
■ Closing Services
Fan Letter Reception: Available until November 29th, 2024 PDT
Memberships and Members-Only Content: Available until 7:59 AM, October 31st, 2024 PDT
We plan to continue selling merchandise and other items that are already on sale. Any future activities that involve Watson Amelia will be announced through official social media and other channels.
We would like to thank all our wonderful fans and stakeholders for their warm support. We kindly request you refrain from contacting our talents regarding this matter, and would like to sincerely thank you for your continued support and encouragement of Watson Amelia.
September 20th, 2024
COVER Corporation
So not 'graduating' but going to be more behind the scenes more.
Wasn't the last graduation health related in that she was literally too sick to stream consistently? Compared with other companies this seems less dark more she wanted a change of pace but still work with Hololive.
Sana Tsukumo injured her back and it literally hurt for her to sit down to stream, so yeah. Her PL is like Ina, she's an illustrator for various gacha games. The oldest generation that still has all of its members is HoloX (HoloJP Gen 0 is weird to classify because they weren't formally a generation until a year or so ago, the first five talents just debuted individually since Cover was just experimenting for the sake of Sora back then.