y'know, I was only thinking of that earlier. Between the bathroom gun story, the mold, and the tales of her friend Kirsche's mother, it gets both hilarious and intense, and I pity the fool that tries anything with them :D
[edit: I wish fishman hadn't nixed the idea of Pippa doing an AR building stream, though I imagine Youtube wouldn't have been as enthusiastic about it as me]
There's a few I know have cosplayed themselves at events, but they tend to be indies. Shylilly and Numi I remember.
Also at least one member of Hololive is a cosplayer and has cosplayed one of her peers, but that's more because she has this whole thing with doing Azur Lane cosplays.
To be fair, that was more her being a (admittedly flirty and at times vaguely thot-y) random dipshit with friends she met through the Yakuza auditions. Youtube pushed that into the meta that lead to a lot of reactions and reposting of the clip.
(What? Biased? Me? No! No I don't have a Kson plushie on my desk. No. No... it's by my TV.)
Just a couple of notes/thoughts:
Firstly, 'livers' is a term used exclusively by Nijisanji (or people who came up from that fanbase), with 'talents' or just 'streamers' being more common outside. This is worth knowing as a few times Niji fans have tried to cause trouble to other companies and been outed by using that term.
Second past lives/PLs are, in my general experience, treated very similar to kayfabe in wrestling - where we know its fake, the information is out there, but politely ignored to keep things fun. Generally it only comes up a lot when people are graduating, were fired, or come back from either of the above. Beyond Doki, notable examples include Rica Ch. (when Hololives Yozora Mel was fired due to a contract problem), Mikeneko (who I've seen referred to as 'the Amber Heard of Japan' and former Hololive and VShojo performer) and a string of Nijisanji refugees such as Sayu, Matarakan and Dearsqn.
In essence, I think a large part of why vtubing has blown up is it is rather like the old days of the Internet where anonymity let people say what they really think, and reach a larger audience without having to be the nephew of some media boss. Its also a field littered with wholesome underdog and rags-to-riches stories, which can be compelling in their own right. What other field could elevate a bedridden girl from 'staring at the ceiling, waiting to die' to 'the biggest female streamer in Twitch (by watch time, iirc)?
As for ai vtubers, Neuro-sama does well and is popular, but she's more of a technical curiosity with a very smart turtle man doing the coding. I doubt we live in a world where corporate interests could get half a far as they have.
Also, gmmf, welcome to the rabbit hole.
It certainly doesn't change anything now, the damage is long since done. Back then it helped maintain the midground between the contained crazies, the disconnected normies and the snarking right. Maybe not in all cases, but fringe madness like otherkin was safely ignored by the mundane masses as 'that weird tumblr stuff everyone laughs at'
On one hand, Tumblr was a breeding ground for the kind of thing we're seeing, but on the other it wasn't just a container for them, it also allowed more sensible people a window into the to point and laugh at the excess. That mockery was one of the things that kept stuff outside Tumblr almost sane
I liken it to the internet's very own Chernobyl. From a certain perspective, the resemblance is uncanny.
Site is built up on a stack of shoddy decisions, questionable policies and nepotistic hiring. Site gets lauded as the most Important Thing. Someone trying to protect the site from danger (danger created by their own actions), does something radical without understanding how it all works. The site explodes, spewing hazardous waste all over everything.
Okay some of that's a bit of a stretch but you get what I mean.
I doubt it falls into the 'heir to the empire' category, but two I had on audiobook a while back were 'The Klingon Way' and 'Legends of the Ferengi' - both delving into the philosophy of their respective cultures. Really interesting stuff.
It wasn't just containment, though - as Tumblr became more extreme it became easier to identify the crazy - "you don't want to act like a tumblrina, do you?"
I think the value of this is under-appreciated, because with that as a reference point it was easier to convince more sensible places to guard against their lunacy, rather than leaving the doors wide open to it.
This overlaps somewhat with my interest in modelling for 3d printing, and I suspect that in some cases we'll see better pure modelling coming out of that community than the gamedev side - if nothing else, a badly clipped edge can be hidden in the game, but it turns into unusable garbage when you try and slice it for printing.
Saying that, I've spent more than a year now on one model and not even tried printing it yet, so I am not your guy for efficient workflow.
I've been saying for a while: the porn ban on Tumblr should be remembered as the internets very own Chernobyl Disaster.
Here you had a site that not only contained but amplified crazy voices to ever higher levels (while presenting a face that could be comfortably mocked by more sensible places - 'you don't want to act like a tumblrina, do you?'), and when the heads tried to reassert control that crazy exploded across the face of the internet, poisoning everything they touched.
At least the term 'super straight' (and super gay/les) is useful in conversation, unlike pretty much all the tumblr gender terms.
Maybe that's why the don't like it - their brains rebel against anything practical or useful.
Casper Van Dien may have done an abridged version, but I'm pretty sure he's not done it unabridged. Saying that, last I looked there's at least 2 different unabridged audiobooks of it someone posted to YT which I found thoroughly enjoyable when I listened to them last summer.
I might be being blind, but I strongly recommend the Dirty Harry movies for such a list if they're not already there: Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, The Enforcer, Sudden Impact and The Dead Pool. Excellent films, in some instances directly tackling the things that became Woke in these trying times.
"Harry hates everybody..."
I'm not entirely sure either fits the mould you're looking for, but I find it fascinating that 2 songs originally written as anti-right in the days of Thatcher and Reagan can be just as anti-left (or at least anti-crony-left) today: one is Chris Rea's 'Road to Hell' crooning about the risk of losing yourself on the road to success, and the other being the Judas Priest classic 'Breakin the Law' screaming the anger of the out of work, dispossessed youth.
(note: if my understanding of these songs is wrong, feel free to correct me, that's what I was understood these songs were 'meant' to be about' from reading and talking to people)
Okay, so I have a few. Forgive me if formatting is bad, I don't post often.
- Relations between US and UK will sour given Sleepy Joe's stated disdain for Britain and apparent support for a unified Ireland.
- Scotland will withdraw from the UK, but will fail to get back into the EU thanks to Spain. I can't predict what will happen next, but with Biden agitating the Irish, I foresee problems there.
- Big tech censorship ramp up will be undercut by faltering user base on the big 3 platforms, and a playing whack-a-mole with alternatives. I've been predicting a return to single-interest forums for several years - I think the current .Win expansion and structure is an example of this.
- Military operations in the mid east will resume pretty much immediately, but given the above and EU's military aspirations there may be a delay before anyone other than the US joins in playing in the sandbox.
- I'll be generous to Biden - I predict he'll make 3 years, soak up any damage in the midterms and be retired for Harris to step in as caretaker and 'continuity candidate' in the hope she gets a full 2-turns after.
- Fuel prices are gonna go mad, but efforts to force us into all-electric will collapse due to rare-earth shortages and spiralling electric prices.
Okay, so... I saw someone say Yoko Kanno, who is a firm favourite of mine, but noone's brought up my favourites of her works. Presenting concert versions because I can:
Macross Frontier Op2 - Lion
Macross Frontier Ed2 - Northern Cross
Macross Frontier Ed1 - Diamond Crevasse
Also - Diamond Crevasse from 'Macross F Galaxy Tour FINAL in Budokan' - I'm including this version primarily because it ALSO has Yoko on the piano. Honestly it's a strong candidate for my favourite song of all time, even if it reduces me to tears every time I listen to it.
Other ones I've not seen mentioned:
GATE op2 - Sekai o Koete
Azur Lane (anime) op - Graphite/Diamond (yes, I like May'n, can you tell?)
Gundam 00 Op2 - Ash Like Snow
Bleach Ed3 Houki boshi