This is just a personal anecdote of mine, but discovering the existence of Vtubers (short for virtual youtubers) has honestly helped me maintain my mental health a lot this year. Not just with Covid, but with the shitstorm of the US election (and I don't even live in the US). In the chaos of this world it felt like something... well not necessarily pure, but something all of its own, detached or at least very far removed from the chaos of the real world, and something wholly new.
For those who don't know, a vtuber is essentially a youtuber or social media person using a 3D (often anime) avatar instead of appearing on camera. Most that I've seen are focused on gaming, but some do music as well. As an example, here's Nyanners who mostly does gaming streams, but from time to time sings as well:
There's something wonderfully unique and interesting to me about this blurring of lines: Between the person behind the camera and the personality they put on. Between a real person and a cartoon character. Youtubers putting on a persona for the camera is nothing new, but when they don't even appear on camera but as a cartoon avatar it ends up creating this somewhat paradoxical situation where the person behind the camera is even farther removed from their content, but it also ends up making the content feel more authentic because the character can just let loose. I also really like the mix of these cutesy cartoon aesthetics and the edgy, irreverent meme culture of the internet. It genuinely feels like something that could only be achieved in the last 3-4 years with the combination of technological advancement and the viability of independent streaming.
That's just something I wanted to talk about. Also, Korone is the cutest goddamn doggo in the universe, don't @ me.
For those who don't know, a vtuber is essentially a youtuber or social media person using a 3D (often anime) avatar instead of appearing on camera. Most that I've seen are focused on gaming, but some do music as well. As an example, here's Nyanners who mostly does gaming streams, but from time to time sings as well:
There's something wonderfully unique and interesting to me about this blurring of lines: Between the person behind the camera and the personality they put on. Between a real person and a cartoon character. Youtubers putting on a persona for the camera is nothing new, but when they don't even appear on camera but as a cartoon avatar it ends up creating this somewhat paradoxical situation where the person behind the camera is even farther removed from their content, but it also ends up making the content feel more authentic because the character can just let loose. I also really like the mix of these cutesy cartoon aesthetics and the edgy, irreverent meme culture of the internet. It genuinely feels like something that could only be achieved in the last 3-4 years with the combination of technological advancement and the viability of independent streaming.
That's just something I wanted to talk about. Also, Korone is the cutest goddamn doggo in the universe, don't @ me.
