/vt/ - Virtual Youtubers

[Anonymous No.]

Are vtubers and their fans the first examples of post-human creatures?

[Anonymous No.]

>We're talking here about a new humankind, a shin jinrui. Nothing more, nothing less. At the very least it's a new kind of humans, if we chose to read it shinjin rui. Well, if nothing else they're new and they're one of a kind. Nothing more is certain about the otaku, even their humanness is being doubted. They might very well be from outer space.
>Their phenomenology varies widely. Some otak hunt for photographs of music industry's synthetic starlets, some are fanatically into computer games, many are immersed in comic-books most of their waking day, others are plastic model maniacs, and yet others fancy hacking into car-telephone conversations. Otak is not concerned with a certain subject matter, but is rather a mode of being. There are magazines catering to them, fairs, pornography, videos, and computer-networks, and there is the "Book of Otaku". According to an estimation of the editor of "Do-Pe", one of the otak-magazines, there is a hard core of 350,000 of them around, but, he says, how many 'light otak' exist, nobody knows.
>If you ask different people for a definition of the term otaku you get contradictory answers. In different phases of its dissemination it changed in meaning, and people look at it from different angles at any given time. What is the smallest common denominator? Otaku are teens or twens. Mostly boys. They usually wear jeans, T-shirt and sneakers, which might not sound very characteristic, but in fashion-crazy Japan it is. They despise physical contact and love media, technical communication, and the realm of reproduction and simulation in general. They are enthusiastic collectors and manipulators of useless artifacts and information. They are an underground, but they are not opposed to the system. They change, manipulate, and subvert ready-made products, but at the same time they are the apotheosis of consumerism and an ideal workforce for contemporary Japanese capitalism. They are the children of the media.
>This image comes close to the one TSUZUKI Kyoichi draws, an ex-journalist for the Yuppy magazine "Popeye" and today an art editor, who introduced me to the more hidden corners of the extensive otaku-world: "In the beginning otaku was used in a very negative sense and meant someone who doesn't look good, who has no girl friend, who is collecting silly things, and is generally out of the world. As a definition I would say that an otaku is a person who is into something useless. Idol-, manga- or whatever-otaku means he does not have anything else. But in that he really indulges. It's a silly way of spending time, from a normal business point of view. They play games with the same seriousness others use for business.

[Anonymous No.]

>>24824534
>They are easily visible, because they don't care about the way they dress. They talk different, and look to the ground while talking face-to-face. They are not into physical activities, they are chubby or thin, but not fit, never tanned. They don't care for a good meal, they think they can spend their money on more important things.
>With computers they get really involved. Computer game programers live on potato-chips that they eat with chopsticks, and on coffee-milk. They have a different rhythm, are awake for 40 hours and then sleep for 12. Computer otaku are said to be able to make love with a girl on the screen. But I think many want a girl friend, but can't get one.
>Otaku are a product of hyper-capitalism and the hyper-consumption society, says Yamazaki (36), another historian of everyday life and an authority on otaku. He is a writer, editor, graphic designer, and most of all a pop critic for the the Asahi Shinbun and magazines like Asahi Journal, Popeye, Takarajima, and Weekly Bunshun. "Today 'otaku' has taken on an extremely wide meaning. Originally it was connected with a precise, stereotyped image. It symbolized a human relationship for which the other forms of saying 'you' would be too intimate. Otaku refered to the space between them, they are far from each other, not familiar." He sees the origin of the social phenomenon otaku in the changes in Japanese culture in the 70's. They are the children of media and technology. They grew up as only child with daddy always out at work, and mummy very eager that her son studies hard so he can enter a good university so he can enter a good company. The clich Japanese success story. And kiddy goes into hiding behind piles of toys, comics, and play machines.
>Information-fetishism' is a central term for Yamazaki. The Otaku continue the same pattern of information aquisition and reproduction they have learned at school. Only the subject matter has changed: idols, cameras, or rock 'n' roll. But content has become negligible anyway. Otucky people can be found in every genre. It's a mode of being. You find them even in fashion. Rather than dressing in trendy clothes for the pleasure of it, the fashion-otaku dresses in information. He shows it off, saying "Do you know this? Oh, you don't!" That's all. A rock-otaku, for instance, does not listen to the music, but collects data on the recordings, the names of the musicians, producers, engineers, studios etc. "The original otaku shows us that we are all information-fetishists." Says Yamazaki, "He caricatures the image of the Japanese."

[Anonymous No.]

>>24824765
>But this was only an aside for getting a brief glimpse of the dominant entertainment culture. Now we will look at it from the otucky point of view. Their idol worship consists in collecting artifacts an information not only on one, but on ten or a hundred idols. Mostly they don't pick the big ones like Matsuda but the B- class or 'minor' idol-singers. Of course, they have to keep track of their schedules and have to have all the records, postcards, T-shirts and other paraphernalia. But they wouldn't be otaku if they were satisfied with the ready made industrial products. They come in two sub-categories: the videotaper and the photographer. The video otaku checks on all the TV-programs in which his idols might appear, records them all, and then edits the tapes for his favorites. The camera otaku has chosen a harder task. The idols regularily give promotion or mini- concerts in places like the roof-top of a department-store or in the summer a swimming-pool. Since unauthorized photographing is prohibited, the otaku sneak in. Sometimes three or four of them carry the camera in parts and then assemble it inside. Even at the fences security gets really tough. So the kids run away leaving expensive camera equipment with huge tele-lenses behind. You can find whole collections after a concert. They only take the film, which is worth enough to buy new cameras. Three hours later they sell the fotos on the streets in Harajuku. The highest value have shots on which the wind blows up the skirts of the girls and their underwear shows.
>If you think that the hybrid system of aidorus and aidorians is pretty hyper-real already you havn't heard of the virtual idol HAGA Yui, yet (which is not a name but the word for 'irritated, impatient, annoyed', literally 'a tooth- ache'). Virtual she is because she does not exist. She is a phantom consisting of different girls who lend Haga her voice or her body. At concerts her face remains hidden and her voice is play-back. She is an assemblage in a way quite similar to the puppets in bunraku. When Haga recently published a photo-book there were three girls sitting at the autograph hour. People would stand in line before the one whom they thought to be the 'more real' Haga-chan. An exhibition with her 'original' art work, scheduled for early November, was postponed. But rumor has it that the actual paintings have been done by several renowned artists. The titel of the exhibition will be: "Does mysterious idol dream of human-faced sheep?"
>That is, of course, a malicious hommage to Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" which served Ridley Scott in the making of "Bladerunner". The presumption from the beginning that otaku perform a perpetual play on the border between the animate and the inanimate seems to harden. 'Android', a somewhat old-fashioned term, is quite fit for idol Haga Yui as well as for the otaku. They look like humans but they aren't, and the're playing with factoids (look like facts, but aren't). The idol is pulling her willing followers by the nose. Understandable that they in turn need puppets to pull their strings.

>tfw a 1990 article on otaku predicted vtubers

[Anonymous No.]

niggers

[Anonymous No.]

>>24824534
>>24824765
>>24824839
pretty accurate. otaku aren't creative, they only know how to consume

[Anonymous No.]

full article for anyone who wants to read the whole thing

[Anonymous No.]

>>24825776
forgot to post the link
https://litter.catbox.moe/a1wiij.pdf

[Anonymous No.]

>>24824765
>otaku are hyper consumers!!!
>T-THEY DON'T GO TO APPLEBEES WITH US AND CONSOOOOM
>INHUMAN FREAKS

[Anonymous No.]

>>24825821
the entire subculture basically revolves around consumerism

normal people have fulfilling hobbies that don't

[Anonymous No.]

>>24824420
Otaku culture came up with A LOT of fictional characters and technologies for escapism and getting away from reality. Including but not limited to :
>Immersive VN with pre-written choices, routes and dialogues
>Software that can replace a real singre
>A fucking home assistant that will text you to get back from work early as if they were your wife

But vtubing involve a real human being to incarnate the character and it is infinitely more real than a fictional character. This isn’t a new step into the virtual, that’s a HUGE step back into the real world and away from virtual stuff.

[Anonymous No.]

an interesting analysis
how long until otaku-culture infests the western hemisphere properly?

[Anonymous No.]

>>24826048
It basically sound like le disney consoomer meme but pandering to weird virgins instead of shitting on them

[Anonymous No.]

>>24826247
so 40k, star wars, star trek etc

[Anonymous No.]

>>24826043
Vtubers are still a simulation and the VA who is acting behind the avatar is still essentially different from the vtuber itself. The Vtuber persona is, dare I say, a whole different entity to the voice actor who's puppeteering them the moment she debuts. Despite showing off some tidbits of the VA's own real persona, it still essentially takes life of it's own.

[Anonymous No.]

>>24826513
I am not saying that vtubers are exactly like real life without a certain degree of virtual, but when compared to literally ANYTHING else. Fictional characters have NEVER in any other medium been as close to being real as with vtubing.
You cannot be more real than that or it stop being a character at all.

[Anonymous No.]

>>24826043
This
I had pretty much given up on dating from 2012 till 2020. I started watching vtubers and it made me think about how not all women are like the ones I dated and have ghosted me so I shouldn't give up yet.
I am still alone and a loser but I want to try to go out on a date this year.

[Anonymous No.]

>>24826586
there's still amount of escapism and neurotic information-gathering that is involved around non-AI vtubing. Numberfags are probably the most otaku-ish people on this board

[Anonymous No.]

>>24824765
>But I think many want a girl friend, but can't get one.
This projection and misunderstanding has apparently existed for decades now. They correctly identify the shittiness of modern society as a reason why autistic programmers turn to anime, but are too pussy at any point in time to mention that modern women are worse (and since this was 32 years ago, they're even worse now) with each passing day and the effort to find the ones -worth it- became exponentially greater in the wake of covid.

[Anonymous No.]

>>24825619
That doesn't even make logical sense.

[Anonymous No.]

>>24825812
Who else should I read to delve into this topic further?

[Anonymous No.]

>>24828365
iunno. I just accidentally found this somewhere

[Anonymous No.]

>>24828144
most otaku don't make anything of their own, they only consume stuff made by other people

[Anonymous No.]

>>24824839
where's my 2D android gf then?

[Anonymous No.]

ok incel

[Anonymous No.]

>>24824420
This is the definition of tldr but anyway if you mean is the world fucked if their our future then yes

[Anonymous No.]

>>24826048
Never, because the world will never be Japanese.

[Anonymous No.]

>>24826048
that's sounds like a retarded proposition

[Anonymous No.]

>>24829663
isn't that normalfags? i thought otaku are the ones drawing the fanarts, making mmd videos and do those mad remixes

[Anonymous No.]

>>24833594
there's an overlap between those types and even then, the average otaku only draws purely for his own pleasure. He's literally consuming his own craft. Even on /ic/, they see art as this pure utilitarian thing that you need to sell to others instead of a medium of pure expression

[Anonymous No.]

>>24824765
>another historian of everyday life and an authority on otaku

[Anonymous No.]

>>24835394
NTA, but that seems too generalist. People don't just do art to express themselves, they do it for all sorts of reasons.

[Anonymous No.]

>>24838016
yeah but the otaku first and foremost makes things for his pleasure and only for himself, craftmaking for mere consumption of his fetishistic desires without the context for wider cultural development. In other words, any shit he makes that normalfags outside his circle will never understand as they masturbate to themselves to whatever shit they consume

[Anonymous No.]

>>24825993
>normal people have fulfilling hobbies that don't
Like what?

[Anonymous No.]

>>24838977
welding

[Anonymous No.]

>>24838977
having a family :^)

[Anonymous No.]

>>24826043
Give it a few more years, we'll be able to attach AI with realistic synthesised voice to Live2D models

[Anonymous No.]

>>24839243
Gotta buy welding gear and materials, therefore are a consumer of those goods.
>>24840225
Having a family is a hobby? Damn hope you don't get bored and just leave.

[Anonymous No.]

tl;dr

[Anonymous No.]

>>24842683
consuming goods for your hobby is different from consuming media as your hobby. buying welding gear facilitates your hobby, but buying isn't the hobby

[Anonymous No.]

>>24842683
good hobbies should enhance your skills. Watching anime or vtubers is not one of them

[Anonymous No.]

>>24844622
it enhances autism, a skill valuable for software development

[Anonymous No.]

>>24838791
no art has ever been produced for the sake of le culture, nobody gives a shit

[Anonymous No.]

>>24824534
literally me

[Anonymous No.]

>>24824839
Vtubing, or at least as we're concerned with it here, has gone in a fairly different direction to this.
Games Club Project and Kizuna AI have taught us that regardless of whether it's temporary or whether it's done in secret, swapping the talents behind the same face is revolting to the fans and disastrous to the business.
It's the face that apparently can be replaced. Many indies will commission a new model every few months, hoping for their big break, or just for the novelty. Many corpos or ex-corpos will find that their 'new character' has old fans, hoping for the same personality they followed.
The secondary interests certainly haven't overtaken the primary content. Rather than "You aren't a real fan unless you have X merch item and Y fanart.", what you'll hear around here is "You aren't a real fan unless you remember hearing X, which was mentioned twice within her past month of streams.".

[Anonymous No.]

>>24844622
they are not hobbies, but stuff like collecting figures, building gunpla or tracking your ip are.
Also, there are no good or bad hobbies, peeps are free to do whatever the fuck they want with their free time

[Anonymous No.]

>>24828144
read Japan's Database Animals by Hiroki Azuma
being an otaku is basically living surrounded by a giant database of familiar tropes and memes. You feel the best consuming what you've already consumed before but in slightly different combinations that give you some sense of novelty. Actual creativity is rare. I mean creativity as in creating something entirely new. The otaku culture chenges by introducing new memes and tropes but does it super slowly and big leaps are hardly seen.

[Anonymous No.]

>>24846330
>Actual creativity is rare. I mean creativity as in creating something entirely new. The otaku culture chenges by introducing new memes and tropes but does it super slowly and big leaps are hardly seen.
thats applies to everything

[Anonymous No.]

>>24846368
yes but it's specifically about the consumers not wanting anything too creative.
They feel good about watching the same shit everyday.

[Anonymous No.]

>>24846480
that applies to everything.

[Anonymous No.]

>>24846480
anon your conflating western geek culture with otaku culture, geek culture is just consume, you are what you rep. just consume product then get excited about next product.
otakus partake in more creative outlets, such as gunpla, fanart, fan games, doujins est.
theyre not immune to consuming the same thing but a lot of creatives want to create different thing, thats why animes are way more varied then western shows are

[Anonymous No.]

>>24844622
Watching vtubers can be a way to train listening comprehension for example, and anime can be deep if you're ready to put in the effort (a bit like movies though not as deep). Sure everyone would prefer if you studied math but you aren't going to do that, so at least you can try to take your entertainement a bit more seriously

[Anonymous No.]

>>24847246
>Watching vtubers can be a way to train listening comprehension
anons who dont watch streams also have poor reading comprehension from my experience.

[Anonymous No.]

>>24846480
thats people in general

[Anonymous No.]

>>24826513
Except that vtubers and their roommates are the same thing according to legal precedent in Japan

[Anonymous No.]

>>24838977
Sports (doing, not watching) and socializing.

[Anonymous No.]

>>24848191
>Sports (doing, not watching)
Normal people only do this up through high school.

[Anonymous No.]

>>24848639
Maybe if you live in a country where sports is organized mostly by schools for their students, instead of by clubs that anyone can join.

[Anonymous No.]

>>24825812
is Nagoya still the otaku center of Japan?

[Anonymous No.]

>>24824534
>music industry's synthetic starlets
That's such a good way to define idols

[Anonymous No.]

>>24849481
Hasn't it always been Akihabara?

[Anonymous No.]

>>24849629
according to the article, it is a city of otakus. I don't know if the author was just being ironic because of the city's notoriety as the "most boring city in Japan" or that the city actually has that many otakus reside there

[Anonymous No.]

>>24849711
*residing in there
god fucking damnit phoneposting sucks

[Anonymous No.]

nigger

[Anonymous No.]

>>24849711
>>24849481
Maybe the author met some otaku from Nagoya and went like
>Oh shit, that's where those creatures spawn

[Anonymous No.]

>>24826684
You know what to do, groomer in training.

[Anonymous No.]

>>24825812
>404 already
repostan
https://litter.catbox.moe/j7aset.pdf

[Anonymous No.]

>>24848191
>Sports (doing, not watching)
Fucking bullshit, there is a reason everyone is fat and unfit as hell.

[Anonymous No.]

>>24848639
>>24853511
I know which continent youre from

[Anonymous No.]

>>24838977
Drinking ice cold brewskies with the boys, getting that lawn the perfect shade of green over the summer, teaching your boy how to throw a long, tight spiral like his old man, seeing your wife try on her highschool cheerleading uniform-- the one she wore the night you carried your squad to state-- and falling in love with her all over again.


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