#her popularity and the YouTube algorithm are doing most of the work

[petrovna-zamo]

omg would you be able to post the katya & mik pic separately as well please? (its ok if you dont want to lol pls ignore me if so) (also thank you for always posting katya updates!! ❤️)

Of course! Just posted it 🤗 and thank you for always making such amazing gifs!

Btw I got the photo from this website:

They posted the upcoming guest schedule for season two if anyone is interested!

Episodes drop every Thursday at 10 am PST on YouTube and Spotify has the uncensored version

[artbyremi]

Whumpril Day 8: Burnout

Read on AO3-> Here

20,365 followers. 

April couldn’t believe it. All her hard work was finally paying off. Ever since the whole Superfly scenario, she had been uploading daily to her YouTube channel. Leo had been helping her film after school in the school’s darkroom and had become her unofficial cameraman and editor. 

It was nice to see someone as dedicated as she was. Leo had pulled a few all-nighters to finish editing in time for the 3:00 daily upload and he was always down for whatever. If April told him she wanted to film whilst wading through the Hudson or inside the museum of natural history after closing, he would be there. If she said she had a wild conspiracy theory about what was turning the walls in the cafeteria green, he would listen. 

April had never been the most popular or the best at making friends and most people found her conspiracy theories or investigations a little too out there. 

Of course her mom had always been there for her and been supportive of her ambitions but this was different. 

Leo was a friend who was her age and with enough modern pop culture knowledge to understand the references she made. He was an amazing partner and April couldn’t imagine doing her show without him. 

She was so lucky to have such a good friend.  

Another successful week later and April entered the dark room after classes, carrying a cup of coffee and her notebook. She had been up all night writing down ideas for leads on the whereabouts of TCRI. They just couldn’t completely gone. It just wasn’t feasible. She’d received word back from one of her contacts, a city power washer who mostly worked near the TCRI lab, that he heard from one of his co-workers who heard from her wife’s friend’s uncle that TCRI had fled with Cynthia Utrom to a smaller lab location somewhere in the Northern New York suburbs. 

April set down her coffee on a table and began flipping through her notepad. Somewhere she had made a list of possible suburbs to investigate. 

“Hey,” Leo mumbled as he entered the dark room, carrying a large binder to his chest. “Did you have Mr. Harris for Algebra I?”

“Hey,” April looked up from her notebook to give him a small smile. “Yeah, it’s an easy A,” she said flippantly. “Just do the homework and you won’t have to study for the tests or quizzes.” 

Leo gave a little nod, “Right, thanks.” He set his school bags on the table and then reached inside to pull out a quick snack of pretzels. “So, are we just filming here today?” He asked as he bit into a pretzel stick.  

April nodded, her smile spreading wider across her face as she finally found the list of towns. “Yeah, I wrote a quick fluff piece on the new tables the cafeteria is getting.”

Leo gave her a puzzled look, “But I thought you hated fluff pieces?” 

“Oh, I do but we need to keep this upload streak going or the algorithm is going to forget about me,” she began to rant, stepping closer and closer to Leo, “and then none of my videos will get any attention and my career as a journalist will be over!” 

“Right,” Leo said as he backed away. “But is anyone really gonna care about the new cafeteria tables? I mean we go to school here and I don’t even think we care.” 

April let out a sigh, “I know–I know. It’s dumb but we have to post something! Besides–” She held up her notebook, “I’ve got a big lead for a video next week!” 

“Do you still think aliens are somehow involved in TCRI?” 

“As a matter of fact, yes,” she stated bluntly, “But this isn’t about that. I made a list of all the nearby towns with TCRI sightings and I think this could be our big break for April Tonight! Think you could come with me this weekend and film some on the scene investigative journalism?” 

Leo blinked, “Us? Alone? On a trip?”

April let out an awkward chuckle, “Well, yeah? Unless you wanna bring one of your brothers?” 

“No-no-no,” Leo frantically shook his head, letting the tails of his mask slap him in the face. “I mean—I,” he stumbled, “I think they’re busy and like remember that time Mikey dropped that light and Raph and Donnie’ll get bored and—“ 

His face was turning bright red the more he rambled. It was kinda cute, how nervous he got. April was never sure quite why he got so nervous but it happened so often she just assumed Leo was an anxious person. She could relate to that. No wonder they got along so well. 

“Leonardo,” April said softly as she placed a hand on his shoulder. 

That immediately shut him up. He let out a puff of air then forced an awkward smile. “I’d love to, April.” 

“Yes!” April cheered, then pulled Leo into a tight embrace. “You’re the best. This is just what the channel needs!” 

Leo hugged her back, practically melting away in her arms. “Yeah, I just need to ask my dad.”

A few days later, April was sitting in the dark room, after school as she always did. She had her laptop in her lap, an iced coffee in one hand, while using the other to scroll her channel analytics page. 

Her views were down. 

Her subscriber count was stagnant. 

Leo had been right about the lunch table fluff piece, no one cared and it was evident in the lack of engagement the video had garnered. She groaned and smashed her face into the keyboard. 

What had she done wrong? 

She had been sure to upload a video every single day since she started. She was sure to mention the like button and the subscribe button in every video and she even provided links to all her recent uploads on all her other social media as well as each of the turtles’ and Splinter’s. 

April’s hands shook as she took a sip of coffee then pressed her thumbs into her temples. Her head was killing her. She knew it was probably the lack of sleep or lack of water or maybe a bit of both but she didn’t have time to worry about frivolous things like sleep and hydration; she needed a good and interesting story. 

She needed to go big. She needed to wow people. Fluff pieces weren’t going to cut it. She needed to have breaking news for each and every upload. She needed to have everyone on the edge of their seats. She needed—

Leo

Where the hell was he? It was already well past three and school ended at 2:15. It wasn’t like him to be late. He was supposed to be bringing the edit for that day’s upload. It was another fluff piece this time on new treadmills at the Coexisting Center. It wasn’t anything special but it was important to keep up with the upload schedule so the algorithm didn’t leave her behind. 

Just as she was about to text him, he entered the dark room looking a bit disheveled. His school bag was hanging onto one of his shoulders, wide open and spilling out. He clutched his math book to his chest and held his head low. 

“Leo!” April said with a big smile across her face. She sprang up from her chair, setting her laptop to the side. “I thought you were flaking on me for a sec.”

“No,” he said in a small voice, his eyes darting downwards. “Of course not.” He hugged the book tighter to his chest. “I just had to stay after class today. Sorry, I’m late.” His eyes stayed fixated on the floor. 

“Nah, It’s cool,” April said with a wave of her hand. “Teachers be like that sometimes. You have the new edit?” 

Leo pursed his lips then averted his eyes as he curled his arms tighter around the book. 

April’s heart skipped a beat. 

This couldn’t be happening. 

She might as well kiss goodbye all her dreams of being a real journalist. 

“Are you serious, Leonardo?” she snipped, “do you know how far back this is gonna set me?” 

There was a slight crack in Leo’s voice as he apologized. 

“All of the hard work we’ve done these past few months is all gonna go to waste!” It’s gonna take me forever to get picked back up by the stupid algorithm.” 

There was a pause then Leo looked up at her with teary eyes, “Is that all you care about!?” He tried to discreetly wipe the tears away, “Can’t you tell I’m trying my best here,” he snapped with a harshness that April had never heard come out of his mouth. “Sorry, I just can’t keep up with it all. I clearly can’t handle homework, editing, filming, and also keeping up with my usual training.” He tried to suppress a sniffle. “Now, I’m failing math, my dad’s disappointed in me, and I probably won’t ever get into a good college and April,” he paused to catch his breath, “I can’t even remember the last time we hung out just as friends and not about the show.” 

April’s heart skipped a beat as she stared back at him. He was right. They hung out practically everyday but it was all in regards to April Tonight. She couldn’t remember the last time they hung out to just be silly teens. There had been so many places around the city that she had wanted to introduce Leo and his brothers to but that had all been put on hold in order to focus all her attention on her silly Youtube channel. 

April looked back at Leo. His skin was pale and his eyes looked tired and lifeless with too many bags to count underneath them. His blue polo top looked slightly disarrayed and was oddly untucked from his khaki pants.

 To put it bluntly, he looked an absolute wreck. The complete opposite of the clean cut teacher’s pet look he usually gave off. 

He’d done this for her. 

He’d overworked himself to the bone. He had sacrificed his own good grades and sleep schedule all to help her with her silly internet news show and this was how she showed her gratitude? By scolding him for missing her unreasonable deadline one time. 

This. 

This had to be the reason why she hadn’t had many friends before the turtles. She was too driven, too focused, too obsessed that she lost track of being a good friend in the first place. 

She was cruel. 

She was heartless. 

But most of all, she was a bad friend. 

“I’m sorry, April,” Leo let out a sad sigh, “I really wanted to help out but I’m—-“

“Stop, stop,” April cut him off, “I’m the one who should be sorry.” 

Leo stared back at her blankly, blinking away the tears that were still forming in his eyes. 

April averted her own teary eyes, “I’ve been a terrible friend to you,” she finally admitted in a small voice. 

Leo opened his mouth to correct her that no, she was an amazing friend. She was his best friend but he just couldn’t get his mouth to say it.  

“I guess I just wanted this so badly.” April admitted, a slight waiver to her voice. “And when our views and follower count started going up I thought I was really gonna achieve it. I never knew numbers could make you feel so good. ” She let out a deep breath, wiped away her tears then adjusted the beanie on her head before finally looking Leo in the eyes. “But that doesn’t excuse the fact that I’ve been a shit friend to you.” 

“It’s okay—“ Leo started to say but then April cut him off. 

“No, you’ve been sacrificing so much just to help me. That’s not fair and I’m sorry.” 

Leo didn’t reply, he just hugged his math book closer to his chest and stared at the ground. 

“Let me tutor you,” April said abruptly. 

“What?” Leo shot his head up to look at her. “But then when are you gonna have time to–” 

“We’ll take a break.” 

“A break? But April–what about that big story you were working on? The one with TCRI and–”

“I’ll still keep working on it,” she said. “I just,” she let out a sigh. “I think I’ve hated just about every single video we’ve posted this last week and I think our audience agrees.” It felt simultaneously good and shameful to admit but it was the truth. 

The past few videos they had uploaded were rushed, boring fluff pieces and April had hated them. She hadn’t wanted to admit it before but deep down she had known it was the reason for the low views. 

“But what about the algorithm? The next time we upload it’s not going to do well, right?” 

April shrugged, “Maybe.” If she was being honest, she wasn’t even quite sure she understood exactly how the algorithm worked. All her knowledge came from what she saw other people online saying and maybe that wasn’t exactly the most trustworthy source. “But when people hear about the exclusive tea we have on TCRI, they’ll have no choice but to come flocking back to our channel!” 

A big grin spread across Leo’s face but quickly faded, “Will you still want to hang out with me if we’re not filming everyday?” 

“Of course,” April replied immediately, “I’ll be your math tutor afterall. Did I mention I got a 98 in Mr. Harris’ class?” 

Leo’s cheeks reddened slightly and he couldn’t hide the smile that spread across his face. “Right, yeah! That sounds amaz–,” he faked a cough to cover his overexcitement. “I mean that sounds cool.”  

April couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle. “Why don’t we grab some froyo and I can help you with your homework?” 

Leo gave a double thumbs-up, “Yeah, sounds cool!” He said awkwardly. 

“But you know, Leo,” April said, her voice a bit serious. 

Leo’s heart skipped a beat, “What?” 

“I would want to hang out with you even if I wasn’t gonna help you with math.” She elbowed him in the side playfully, “You’re fun to be around, you know?”

“Oh,” Leo said in a small voice, cheeks reddening. “Well, you’re fun to be around as well.” 

April’s smile fell ever so slightly. A part of her didn’t believe him. She had been so awful to him. She had been a terrible friend. It was difficult to fathom that he didn’t hold at least a little bit of malice toward her. 

She needed to make it up to him. To prove that she was a good friend. 

“And I-uhh,” Leo stuttered. “I noticed you changed your lipstick shade and I just wanted to tell you I think it looks really really nice,” Leo blathered. 

April blinked

That. 

That was not what she had been expecting him to say. 

One thing was sure, Leo held no malice toward her. He was just sweet like that. He always looked for the good in people. She felt so lucky to have met him.

[ellestra]

Farming content James Somerton style

Edited: I cleaned up sentences, removed typos and added some links

You've probably seen the latest hbomberguy video that highlights plagiarism problem on youtube. He gives several examples many I never heard about but I've been recommended iilluminaughtii before and watched some of her stuff before getting tired of seemingly endless volume (now I know why). But then he gets to the real subject of the video and I did watch a lot of James Somerton videos. And I liked many of them. I liked them a lot.

I didn't give him any money and, as much as it came as relief, I kept thinking how this must feel so much worse for people who did. I thought about supporting him for a moment when he posted (in April this year!) how his videos are getting less views because youtube algorithm and demonetisation of gay creators (it's a real thing so it was easy to believe) and he will be forced to stop creating if people don't sign up to his patreon. But I was casual viewer and he seemed big enough so I didn't. It must feel like such a betrayal to those who created a real community around him. Just like his film production company it's clear now it was another of his scams. It's infuriating how well it worked.

Somerton deleted his patreon now (along with his twitter and discord server) so there is probably no recourse for those affected. The only good thing is that someone big enough highlighted what he did (and brought receipts) so he had to stop. When smaller creators called him out it either went unnoticed or he managed to make himself a victim (and send his fans after them). He actually did what Anita Sarkeesian was accused of and gaslighted his followers about it. His misogyny just adds an extra bitter taste to this.

At the end hbomberguy talks about how if Somerton was open about what he was doing this could've been his niche. He said it just as I was thinking basically the same thing. I'm sure there is a market for field review type of videos. Not review like movie or book review but in academic sense when you take other people articles on the subject and compare to show the state of research on the subject on at the moment.

This kind of reviews doesn't need any original research. The value is in giving people overview of where the field is at and pointing them to the actual research so they can read more in depth about the results. If you already did the search for all the sources this is a perfect format to use them. Most people don't have time or resources to comb through all the resources themselves but they like to learn about it and this is why videos like that are popular. That's why iilluminaughtii, Somerton and al. were able to cash in on it.

But of course this kind of things have to properly cited. And they cannot be just all quotes. You have to make coherent points not just make stuff up for the transitions (lies that actually made Todd in the Shadows make a video not about music). I suppose that's too much work. Too much effort when you need to crank out content to satisfy all the sponsors.

I was glad to find out I already watch most of the queer creators recommended in the hbomberguy's video (and put on this watch list) as an alternative (I would add Caelan Conrad to it - funnily enough I found them through their video about antivax movement). I trained my youtube recommendations well in which way it skews but it's easier to kick out all the obviously awful when you know what talking points to avoid. It's much harder to spot grift when it pretends to care about the same things you care about. Somerton was saying all the right things. It just wasn't his words.

Did he even believe any of it? I bet he'll insist on yes but the laziness says otherwise. It seems like it was all just for the money and fans this angle gave him. That he enjoyed being cool to the audience he built and the stuff it bought him. Be gay do crime for real. Only he didn't write that one either.

[chevelleneech]

https://www.tumblr.com/chevelleneech/761066997012414464/watching-frankie-biggz-react-to-the-bts-guide-and?source=share

This thing frustrates me sooooo much so I'm just trying to not go to places where i know I'll see shit you know? I'm in my delulu land where i can be like "if i don't see it then it's not there" when i know it's happening there but still.

I was just thinking about how all jimin and jungkook watch YouTube like that's there go to app for yrs, jk is on tiktok as well where the whole army side is again infected with Tkkrs just like YT as well and jm used to have tikto atleast during covid (as we saw on his phone during BTS's last doc where we saw his home for the first time, he could still be having) and both of them watch members related stuff and Army's made videos as well so out if frustration I'm like They all see it , they see what's been said in those video and how they're portrayed and if they're not giving shits about it is it really worth that we keep fighting these loosers? No. So ig from now on I'm just gonna let ppl think whatever they want of jimin-jungkook's friendship if ppl want to believe they hate e/o so be it, if they think jungkook is forced then so be it.

I remember well that one time when tkklives acct was taken (like Locked or smtg) and then later it was given back to her by BH with a fatass pop-up that the channel doens't cross any boundaries or wtv and she said that BH was quite good to her as in that they didn't take down her acct or shit like that. The point is if people with power who can actually do something about these things don't care is it really worth it that we give it this much attention? Jikook thinks their Fandom loves them when it hates them together so let it be.

This was just my frustrated rant tbh. After yrs of seeing the same shit happening and getting mad over things i can't do anything about I'm just gonna take a step back and let things be. There's no hope for the betterment of this Fandom They're gonna say jikook fanservice for the rest of BTS's existence and there's no turning back there. And given how both jm and jk are private and don't post their personal things online everyone is gonna keep questioning it saying they don't meet apart from work while others who post are gonna be called closest the same that happened in 2023. Although it's been happening since before 2023 but it's just gonna get worse so I'm gonna let people handle it who can actually do something about it.

I sacrificed my algorithm to watch a Tkklives video real quick, not the entire thing, but a portion to see if anything has changed from when I first got into the fandom and wanted to see what a the drama was about once I knew Tkk vs Jikook was a thing.

Anyway, from the 5 minutes I just watched, it doesn’t seem like much has changed. She slows down clips and makes up her own ideas about what’s going on, and people believe it. So if that’s all she’s been doing and continues to do, there is nothing the company can do about that. Not to mention, people keep saying Big Hit said she can keep going, and aside from me never seeing proof of that being true, I would imagine her not living in SK makes it tough to sue her anyway.

She posts elaborate fantasy edits, creating a story out of footage millions of other people have made YouTube edits with. Granted she’s annoying and has stirred a plethora of drama within the fandom, but she’s not doing anything illegal from how it currently looks. So it’s. It even really that a delusional fan is creating and spreading her own conclusions, it must that Tae unfortunately has the most toxic fans out of the members, and majority of them ship Tkk.

His fans also happen to be the most vocal, even if he’s not the most popular, so they tend to cause the most chaos. In any case, I’m not trying to change anything nor argue with people who have sewn their ears shut. It’s just irritating to see a guy who seemingly wants to get to know BTS as people and artists be led astray, over a ship and fandom drama he has no idea about. They’re using his naïvety to manipulate his opinions of the members and the company (the latter which don’t even need help these days), but the second someone suggests a Jikook video for Frankie to watch so he can fully understand that Jimin and Jungkook do essentially live in a bubble when together, and outside parties often come across as third wheels without it being a big deal, that person will be spammed with harassment and be considered a necessary block. Which Frankie would like adhere to, because he is unaware that Tkkrs hate Jimin and his friendship with JK.

Which, from an outside perspective is always going to be difficult to explain, because the actual status of JM and JK’s relationship is irrelevant. Them dating or not does not mean anything to the overall fact of the situation. It’s simple that Tkkrs hate the very possibility of them meaning anything to each other, because they want Tae and JK to mean everything to one another at all times. It’s why Tkkrs struggle to accept even the smallest Jikook moments. JK can’t wish Jimin a happy birthday without Tkkrs claiming he was forced by the company to say something. Jungkoom can’t look at his cellphone even though JM and Tae can, without it meaning he’s bored out of his mind without Tae around to entertain him.

So how do you explain to someone who is 100% unaware of this chaos, that he’s being lied to? There is sensible way to tell Frankie Biggz that the people who harassed him only did so, because they don’t like they he misunderstood Tae’s natural “bitchy” personality, due to him simply not knowing Tae well enough to know that’s just how he is? How do you explain to him that AYS wasn’t written with the intent to make Tae seem like a third wheel, but that Jimin and Jungkook themselves are more than aware that they tend to push people into third wheel territory when with them, because they build a bubble around themselves when together?

You can’t explain that. It has to be observed, but when Tkkrs are able to get ahead of that learning curve, and plant seeds of doubt and convince people that Tae is a victim of a mean company and JM and JK are victims of a script… there’s nothing else that can be done.

I do hope he continues to watch more official content and comes to realize Tae is sort of meh about things, because that’s just who he is. He makes snarky comments and likes to chill out on his own, but he’s also very extroverted and livens up a party when he wants to. I also hope he is able to learn who Jimin and Jungkook are, and understand that it would be impossible to script their friendship for 12 years. But who knows. Hell either fall down the Tkk lies rabbit hole, or see the light. Either way, I am still annoyed Tkkrs got to him so fast.

[accirax]

initial thoughts on DCAS episode 20

^ reminder for everyone that this applies to these initial thoughts as well! it was quite the surprising sight to have pop up at the beginning of the episode, though.

... what is Emily's motivation to kill Trevor here, exactly? i guess she took a page out of Riya's book when it comes to pushing gays off of cliffs.

yayyyyyyy, they're finally getting along! :D

does framing people for theft and twisting their already broken ankles count as "working"?

i guess we do know from Aiden in Season 2 that Tom and Jake were the most popular players. it makes sense (especially given the grandparent context Ally goes into), but it was still quite surprising.

i really hope that Tom and Jake talk this out at some point, whether in the finale finale or in the tomjake miniseries, because the truth of the situation is that Tom's absence from Jake's life was contributing to his misery, which was apparently much greater than anyone expected. i know that Tom never intended it to be that way, but i'm also sure that his fooling around with lying about having a boyfriend wasn't doing Jake any favors. i just want to make sure that the inadvertent hurt that Tom caused Jake doesn't get swept under the rug.

haha, it's puns in visual storytelling :)

this is understandable. Riya can and will use your backstory against you.

.......................................sigh

this might sound like an odd critique given how much people love to dunk on DC's writing (especially in All Stars), but i actually think that the ONC writers don't have enough faith in themselves. i mean that in the sense that, across the season, they set up really compelling plotlines and rivalries between both Jake/Ally and Connor/Riya that people will naturally want to see fulfilled.

for Ally and Jake, just being here and being forced to work together after everything they've been through is already enough, especially when Connor's hopes are stacked on top of it as well. we're in it with the characters for the ride. so, we don't need more bits of fake drama, like Jake being petty and shocking Ally out of nowhere last episode, or Ally reacting stupidly to Riya's obvious lie, to keep up invested. we don't need a huge last-minute spectacle to feel like Ally and Jake working together is a big deal, because they've been subtly and slowly convincing us of that through the entire season. instead, diverting from the steady characterization to inject needless drama in is just going to convince everyone that nothing matters.

i don't know if this could be a miscalculated flaw from trying to account for the fact that any viewer could hop in at any time on youtube, or appealing to the youtube/tiktok algorithm, or an internal, insecure standard to insert drama into the show at any cost, but i hope that the writers realize how good they are at using heartfelt scenes to build up character dynamics across entire seasons and stop breaking character for silly plot twists in season 4. i have a lot of faith in the writers. i hope they can find that faith in themselves.

y'know, everyone keeps saying that...

OOH THE MOTION BLUR??? POP OFF ONC ANIMATION TEAM I SEE YOU

the "Ally, you're going there!" sign was so fucking funny

that's not very "i'll never work with or trust Riya again" of you, Grett

i literally said before Riya struck her pose, "i hope that Riya does the 'aren't you gay?' pose when it's her turn" and then she did! it's her signature move for a reason ;D

this is, like, the exact same spot and pose as when Trevor initially found Derek and Kristal kissing. i wonder if that was intentional. also, the Gay Thoughts Montage(tm) was really funny.

why would you do it like that? hasn't Trevor suffered enough...? (/j)

@venus-is-thinking pointed out the hilarity of Jake being the one to say this, as he's one of the two contestants who actually has been in the mines before. i guess it just goes to show how disorienting the bags were.

get his ass!!!

i KNEW Ally was going to make a minecraft reference as soon as Kristal explained the challenge. miiiiiiiiiiiiine diiiiiiiiiiamoooooooonds...

way to keep your eyes on the prize, queen.

we love money laundering!! (i think that's close enough to what money laundering is? also i'm joking, obviously.)

again, what is Emily's motivation here? i know it's technically "get the show canceled to embarass Kristal," but she really believes in that so strongly as to put the lives of six innocents-- including an eight year old-- at risk to do so? idk, i feel like Emily's character fell off the realm of reality into supervillain status. it's sad :(

boy, i sure am glad that we witness Riya and Yul pick up 10 gems in this scene! (/s /j)

very brave, Jake. i feel like this parallels something in s1, although i can't remember what. maybe it's just Alec protecting Fiore? that doesn't seem particularly relevant, unless Jake is also auditioning to be her dad.

James: wait... does that mean Jake and Ally are going to fall madly in love with each other? #rivalstolovers.

they look like paleontological fossils in there. the fuck happened to them?

somebody, quick, give them a miniseries! this is too good of a poster opportunity to pass up!

you have to make sure you strike a slay pose, even as you're dying.

props to the trailer for making it look like Ally was the one who sent the rocks to James' face instead of Riya. that was a fun setup and subversion of expectations!

see, Riya can and will use your backstory against you! i was kind of expecting her to do this to Jake, too, given the setup from earlier in the episode. i guess they might be saving that for the finale proper, though.

(check out the reblog for my thoughts on the ending, i ran out of images)

[msommers]

riya youtuber AU and maeve magnus archives AU!

thank you!! finally a reminder to get back to those abandoned maeve thoughts lmao // send an au for 5 headcanons

riya youtuber au

in true riya form, i can't imagine she'd have a single type of content. she'd be all over the place, uploading whatever the fuck she felt like making. also in true riya form this chaos somehow works for her, algorithm gods be damned. (it's bc she's hot and has hot friends/family)

honestly she's probably one of those youtubers who has like 3 different channels because she let a friend talk her into at least trying to be a little organized and yeah it worked, things are sorted, but sometimes she'll go over a month without putting anything out on one of them because she didn't feel like making anything for it lmao

in this world she'd actually get to live those dreams of traveling with victor and they'd have the most envy inducing vlogs about it. like wym they're so carefree and privileged enough they can do shit like “we spent 3 months visiting the most romantic destinations according to [insert site here]” why can't that be ME

i just know one of her most popular videos would be “grwm but my brothers do the voice over” (daimon knows the most bc he's the married one and listens to his wife lmao) 

she does grwm livestreams before she attends concerts and almost all of them start several hours before she’s set to leave because she’ll have the artist’s music playing in the bg and waste an ungodly amount of time dancing to it + talking with her chat. the eyeliner can wait she’s gotta shake ass to this chorus real quick

tma maeve au (which i did partially write a statement for all those months ago but never finished lmao)

she had 2 encounters with the lonely. the first happened when she was a little girl and home alone, the forsaken playing with her belief that her parents wished they'd never had her by having her walk through a version of her home with all trace of her existence removed. when she ran outside to look for help, it appeared that nobody could see or hear her whatsoever. naturally she had a massive breakdown after that, blacked out, was woken up by her irritated mother, and found out she'd lost about 2 days to the "nightmare".

her second encounter came nearly three years into her marriage to carden, the lonely returned in a familiar horror but this time working in tandem with the stranger. her home once again warped by the fears, this time everything of hers replaced to display the version of her that carden tried so hard to mold her into. surrounded by people that she knew because of him, all seemingly blind to her panic and speaking to her like it was a casual gathering with nothing amiss. she's married to that man for another two years and almost certainly recovering from that encounter the entire time, often stumbling two steps back because of his gaslighting aligning perfectly with that encounter's reality. 

i still believe it’s super funny for maeve to lie her ass off on a cv and in an interview with institute head ilya (he’s a knowerTM but goes along with it anyway) to get a job there because she believes it has answers for her experiences, and those will help to heal her. and then it’s even funnier bc she’s unwittingly signed on for exposure to a third entity and even more horrors. like yikes, sorry bestie, you really don’t deserve all that. at least she can flirt w her co-workers to cope

maeve recording her own statement is fun for many reasons but i think #1 is the concept of after finishing the stories, her saying into the quiet, “ilya. i know you’re listening.” and hearing the static grow just a little bit louder bc yes. yes he is. do i know all of the surrounding circumstances or place in the story?? absolutely not. and idc. i think it’s cool and fun and sexy for king voyeur himself to be Seen in return. to get called out when he's just sitting there in his office having a peep lmao

lysandra (lonely avatar) and ilya (eye avatar) having a turf war over who has the claim on maeve because lysandra’s been tormenting her for [indiscriminate amount of time here] and wants the treat, but ilya's formed an attachment + maeve's so effortlessly started easing into the domain with her dedication to research, writing, and aiding archivist-in-training dietrich over there.

[lastweeksshirttonight]

Lee is re-watching Sherlock for some fucking reason - Season One

I'm well aware that the crossover between "currently popular and loved British comedian in the US updates, thirst, and accoutrements" and "BBC show that went so off the rails that people now like to pretend Andrew Scott's breakout role was the Hot Priest in Fleabag" is limited, but weirdly, returning to Sherlock was one of the few things that was keeping my brain somewhat grounded and whirring during Work Hell.

We're in uncharted territory here. You're gonna learn a bit about the things I do when I'm not tracking John Oliver obsessively. I am nervous about this but hey, I'm guessing most of you knew I don't solely live and breathe John Oliver. (I know. I have multitudes. This is a shocking revelation. Please take time to process it.)

Firstly, a content note - there's going to be discussion about queerbaiting and queercoding villains, and the beginning of this goes into some of James Somerton's absolutely disgusting claims about the AIDS crisis. This post will only be focused on Season One, as that's all I've finished at this point.

Let's go.

(above image sourced from Writing Tips and Memes)

My sudden re-emergent hyperfixation started because of the hbomberguy takedown of James Somerton, weirdly. I don't follow many YouTubers - I like Bright Sun Films because he goes urban exploring, something I've always wanted to do but have never managed to make happen, and also Todd in the Shadows, whose Trainwreckords series is very well-done and expertly researched. Seeing that name, you might know where this is going. Todd dropped a video about James Somerton, who I had never fucking heard of and now wish I'd known about before, so I could scream bloody murder about what an absolute fuckwad he is.

(I don't want to get too in the weeds here, but the things James asserted about WWII, Nazis, and the AIDS crisis are so vehemently offensive that I'm still struggling with them. Claiming that only boring gays survived the AIDS crisis in particular is so vile that I have gotten anger flashes thinking about it almost daily since hearing it.)

Todd recommended watching all four hours of the hbomberguy plagiarism video, and I ran that in the background while working about two weeks ago. Eventually I had to stop doing that because the plagiarism revelations were so distracting and shocking. Todd's video was even more of a goddamn mindfuck, and even the smaller, less offensive things have taken up far too much space in my brain. Californians, does anyone at all deify Bob Iger??? Like... what the goddamn fuck??? Bob Iger????

After watching one hbomberguy video, the algorithm did its thing, and gave me a video called "Sherlock is Garbage and Here's Why". Posting it here for posterity:

Because my brain works in mysterious ways (-cough-ADHD-cough-), watching this... made me want to rewatch Sherlock.

I initially saw Sherlock for the first time thanks to someone I met in my last year of college, 2012. At the time, Michael (a nickname) was my neighbor in the dorms; over the past ten years, she's become one of my closest friends and a true rock in my life. One of the first things we bonded over that I introduced her to was the San Francisco Giants and the ghost I will always be chasing, Tim Lincecum; one of the first things we bonded over that she introduced me to was BBC Sherlock. The show was in the early months of its extended hiatus after Season Two, at the height of its fandom, and we were both completely obsessed. I read all the Doyle stories, took in a truly wild amount of fanfiction, wrote a not-very-popular AU fic, became part of a strange inter-dorm ARG based on Sherlock orchestrated by Michael... it consumed a huge part of our lives.

When Season 3 dropped, I almost stopped watching after "The Empty Hearse". I don't want to get into why it offended me so much before we get to a Season 3 post, but just know my enthusiasm severely dampened there. The rest of Season 3 I think of with blase emotions, especially the ending, which I found just dumb, save one part of it. I recall going to see The Abominable Bride in theatres with my mom (and maybe Michael?), and I think I liked it fine - aside, again, from the ending. But I had no interest in a Season Four, and when it dropped, Michael's long rambling phone calls describing the absolute shitstorm of a plot cemented that I was never going to watch it again.

Until now.

I definitely don't think the hbomberguy video is perfect. His insistence that Doyle canon never had Holmes pull answers to cases out of his ass is... something, lol, as is his opinion that changing the solution to certain puzzles in A Study in Pink disrespects the original canon. (Bro, these stories have been retold a bajillion times, they need to mix it up to keep it interesting.) But he put a finger on something that I'd wrestled with regarding Sherlock for a long time - that the show's writing often teased something big and new and conclusive in the horizon, but almost never delivered. That wasn't an issue in early days when there was less invested in an increasingly convoluted mythic story, or when they weren't fully blowing off the resolutions to cliffhangers, but the flaw in writing a story where you promise something huge on the horizon and never deliver should be obvious.

The first season doesn't trade much in that idea, and going back to it was something I found exceptionally enjoyable!

Before I watched:

I remembered bits and pieces of "A Study in Pink" and the whole plot in summary.

I truly didn't remember anything about "The Blind Banker" except that I found it fairly 'yellow peril'-y when I saw it in 2012.

I mixed up huge chunks of Season Two's "A Scandal in Belgravia" with "The Great Game" in my head and somehow forgot the main plot thrust was Moriarty kidnapping people and strapping bombs to them.

I genuinely forgot Sebastian Moran was a character basically hallucinated into existence by the fandom and didn't appear in the show at all until a brief appearance in Season Three.

In a way, it was like I was watching the show for the first time all over again. My partner also watched the first season with me, and it was interesting to get his thoughts on the show as we watched.

To start, his favorite character is Mycroft. Watching Season One, I had to agree that Mycroft has a depth of character that I'd forgotten about. Mark Gatiss plays him perfectly, aloof and smarter than you but unsure of how to deal with his natural feelings of concern and fear for his oft-spiraling, danger-seeking younger brother - and how those feelings magnify with the influence of extreme danger-seeker (at least in this season) John Watson. The show wants you to believe so badly that he's Moriarty in "A Study in Pink", which I don't think works even if you know he isn't Moriarty - there's a warmth to Gatiss' Mycroft that, even while he's doing incredibly ominous things like shutting off all cameras in a busy intersection, still comes through.

My favorite character is Moriarty. I haven't mentioned this very much here, because why would I, but my favorite character type in media is "theatrical abject shithead". It's why I cosplay Bakugo from My Hero Academia and loved everything about Akechi in Persona 5. Hell when I was a kid, I told teachers that when I grew up, I wanted to join Team Rocket. I love the theatrical shitheads. And boy, is Moriarty some sort of theatrical shithead. I don't DISAGREE with hbomberguy pointing out that, as written, Moriarty is a complete mess of a character, a queer-coded literal terrorist with no motivations besides "I did that because I'M CRAAAAZY!"... but he's my queer-coded literal terrorist, ok? I could write a whole paper on all the harmful stereotypes inhabiting this version of Moriarty... but I can't deny that the flamboyance and violence pulsing just beneath the surface of Andrew Scott's performance was the beating heart of that show for me. Sure, Sherlock and John, at least early on, were a compelling duo, but the show was at its best with Moriarty pulling strings for inexplicable reasons in the background. I love him.

(An aside: watching Sherlock made me remember how hilarious it was to see basically every major actor from the show in one of my favorite movies of all time, 1917, to the point that I actually kinda laughed in the theatre thinking about it.)

The entirety of the first season also is more devoted to actual crime-solving and detective work than I remembered the show being. I think that works strongly in its favor, and as I recall things from later seasons, drifting from that element definitely hampers the show greatly. In particular, while the lazy and uncomfortable Orientalism of "The Blind Banker" is still incredibly glaring, the actual mystery at the core of it is very excitingly tracked and easily followed while watching. The fact that John is treated like an equal (mostly) throughout only enhances my thoughts on that. "The Great Game" is a little more slapdash (and hurt by the fact that the entire Vermeer section would be solvable with a smartphone nowadays), but you can still make connections mentally with most of the cases and deduction/investigation is being shown logically. (hbomberguy cites the Golem as a problematic logical leap akin to some of Season Two's dumbest, and I can't agree. It's a reasonable suspension of disbelief to assume Sherlock knows about assassins and is followed by some more sensible investigation and inspection of the Golem's victim. The sequence of Sherlock fighting the Golem, however, is very, very silly.)

Related to that... the autopsy doctors on this show are fucking AWFUL at their jobs. Like straight-up negligently awful. How in the actual fuck did they not investigate the puncture marks on Connie Price's body? How did they not notice a highly distinctive heel tattoo on three recently-murdered corpses? Is Molly the only vaguely competent person in the mortuary? My partner and I were extremely amused that, while Lestrade and his police force are thankfully shown with much more intelligence than in other Holmes adaptations and BBC!Watson wouldn't think jam is a clue, the writers seem to have shunted the stupidity straight to the invisible autopsy doctors.

The first season also does a good job of making Sherlock seem like an overly intelligent if socially stunted human being, instead of the condescending prickish intellectual Ubermensch he ends up becoming as the show progresses. "A Study in Pink"'s ending being Sherlock throwing aside his deduction of the cabbie's killer when he realizes it's Watson, unconvincingly lying to Lestrade and insisting he's in shock before rejoining the other man and genuinely bonding with him, is remarkably compelling as fulfillment of a promise we get from Lestrade earlier in the episode - "Sherlock Holmes is a great man. One day he may even be a good one." My memory is admittedly faulty, but part of why "The Empty Hearse" turned me off so viscerally was Sherlock's (and to an extent, Mycroft's) insufferable growing smugness, particularly where explaining plans or mysteries to John. We get told often that Watson humanizes Sherlock and that the two have a strong bond throughout the series, but Sherlock gets much more dickish in general as the series progresses. One thing I do remember with stark clarity is that after being utterly chastised at a Christmas party in "A Scandal in Belgravia", Sherlock does visibly treat Molly MUCH better throughout the remainder of the show. So, uh, why did we lose that energy with the show's central pairing?

Speaking of the show's central pairing, the queerbaiting starts SO EARLY on this show. I want to make it clear that obviously the benefit of hindsight and knowledge of how the show ends really colors a lot about the Johnlock relationship now, and as a society, we're more aware of what queerbaiting is and what it looks like, which will obviously alter how I perceive these interactions now. I also want to make it clear that I never really shipped Johnlock outside of just kind of assuming that it would be canon because everyone seemed really convinced of it. (I was an absolute degenerate that shipped John with Moriarty. On top of enjoying theatrical disasters, I enjoy ships with an abundance of chaos and impossibility.) There's some biases at play here.

Even so, we are not far into the episode where John is protesting that obviously he needs a second bed in 221B to Mrs. Hudson, he's not gay! The scene in the restaurant has such an aggressively shippy energy to it (despite Watson's consistent denials) that I actively commented on it to my partner as it was happening, saying "the queerbaiting happens WAY SOONER than I thought!" It's distracting and has aged absolutely terribly. The worst by far is John quipping, after being removed from a bomb vest at a pool in "The Great Game", that people will talk because of Sherlock ripping his clothes off in a darkened swimming pool. Why is Watson's heterosexuality so fragile that he's thinking about gossip rags as he's actively recovering from a near-death experience?!

(Aside: I'm aware that last point is not as effective when you think about the fact that I shipped two characters whose sole canonical interaction was one man kidnapping and forcing the other into a bomb vest. In my defense, a) I love mess and b) John never quips about thinking people will talk because he got kidnapped.)

Moriarty's first appearance in "The Great Game" sees him as Molly's fake boyfriend slipping a phone number to Sherlock, which lead to my partner commenting about how distracting it also was, on top of the queerbaiting, that almost every single person on the show has some sort of deep metaphysical attraction to Sherlock. Those people aren't on the lighting and cinematography team for sure; Benedict Cumberbatch is lit ominously and sometimes demonically throughout the first season, highlighting his antihero and brusque nature effectively. But many, many characters in the show - just in season one, Molly, Moriarty, multiple characters of the day, the Cabbie, and John - are all drawn to Sherlock and his very special brain and his very sharp cheekbones. Signs of a big future problem come through in this way, where the show starts sidelining Watson as our central figure and puts Sherlock squarely at the center of everyone's universe and makes lesbians fall in love with him.

(My partner also laughed pretty hard at how obvious Moriarty's pratfalls were as Molly's boyfriend, noting that the show was pretty bad at hiding who Moriarty was every time it came up.)

Some of the seeds of Sherlock's destruction are sown in this first season, obviously. The big one I haven't touched on is the ending cliffhanger itself. Moriarty has John and Sherlock trapped in the pool, tens of sniper sights trained on them, and says that he can't let them escape. Amazing cliffhanger here! It is not fulfilled on at all, but because Andrew Scott can carry anything on his back (including Spectre, which I cannot start talking about because we'll be here all day), the scene doesn't feel like a total waste and makes you want to hang on to find out what happens later.

But there was so much here that was delightful. All the acting is uniformly excellent, and the overt physical tics that come to define Sherlock's mind palace and mental prowess being showcased are barely evident here. The actual detective work, like I said earlier, is really involving! I don't feel like I figured out the solutions for the mysteries I couldn't recall the answers for too easily and thought Sherlock's deductive reason largely followed and wasn't too obscure. I'm still such a sucker for the show's style - that opening credits sequence is so perfectly put together, the text messages that interact with the scene and at the time made this show feel so fresh and modern to me, filming the character's faces in taxis through panes of glass and obscuring material in "A Study in Pink" to give everything an obfuscating sheen... give me all of it.

The music, too, was something I'd forgotten about and truly ended up adoring. Taskmaster (and The Horne Section's score for it) really owes a debt to Michael Price and David Arnold. So much of Sherlock's score could probably be dropped straight into a Taskmaster episode and I would have to think pretty hard to notice a difference in the show's usual musical palette. I've been eyeballing the vinyl on eBay, to give you an idea of how much I love this score. "The Game is On" is a perfect piece of music, clockwork spinning noises emphasizing the jauntiness of Sherlock as he drags Watson on his latest case before sliding into the more subdued, vaguely ominous thrum of its second movement descending into the madness of the third part, violins shrieking as the action reaches its apex.

Normally, with such a degree of pleasant surprise, I'd be eager to move forward to Season Two. Unfortunately, I know the first episode of Season Two is... a doozy. To say the least. A doozy that may get its own essay because of how doozy-ish it is.

In any case, I ended up really enjoying going back to Season One of Sherlock! Super down to talk further about the show, future write-ups, and my horrible taste in fictional ships and men - shoot me a message, reply to this post, wherever, I'll be here! <3

[real-total-drama-takes]

2023 TDI oops all influencers reboot (from 🦆 anon)(not including chase + julia for obvious reasons) (I haven't watched season two yet so take this all with a pinch of salt)

Caleb is like Mr beast. Monetized acts of kindness. Probably a daily vlogger too.

I think Axel has two unrelated but both semi popular social media accounts. A basic work out Instagram, and a secret Tumblr account where she posts shitty poetry.

Nichelle has a nepotism YouTube channel that gets pushed hard in the algorithm due to her being a celebrity. She doesn't really post the videos her manager probably pays someone to do that for her.

Scary girl I thinks started out as a controversial Tumblr mico celebrity and moved to tiktok as soon as that ship sank. Posts a mix of dances and untagged jumpscare/shock videos.

Damien is a let's player/live streamer. I was gonna say he's a react channel but I decided he has too much integrity for that. He gets genuinely scared playing middle of the road indie horror games.

MK has a YouTube channel where she "gives advice" on how to shoplift. But it's all shit advice that will get them caught. She doesn't want competition.

Wayne and Raj have a shared react channel. They aren't like cynical about it they just don't realize how shit the content they're making is. They watch scenes where characters play hockey and go "yup that what I would've done".

Ripper has a podcast he hosts out of the shed in his parents back yard where he just talks about mind numbing bullshit that doesn't matter. Eventually he starts taking calls and half the callers are just asking if he's really like this or if he's doing a bit.

Zee has the spirit of early internet. He just records himself talking to the camera about a bunch of bullshit and it gets 50 million views +. He doesn't even monetise it so he doesn't make any money from it, he just has a love of the craft.

Emma has a true crime channel. She has enough self awareness to be somewhat cautious when talking about murder at least. She still has an a sponsor for every video though

Millie probably doesn't watch YouTube realistically, but if she did she would be a video essayist. She makes videos called "The total-dramatization of Gen Z", and they'd be the most pretentious shit imaginable.

Bowie I think streams some basic shooter like valorant specifically so he can ruin some fourteen year old shit heads day. He's okay at the game but he even better at the mental warfare of a unmoderated voice chat.

Priya is like baby gronk, does this make sense? She doesn't have her own social media but I imagine that since the first day she was born her parents have worked tirelessly to keep her relevant.

Bonus: Chris tried to make a YouTube channel, uploaded one video, spent the rest of the day arguing with commentators asking why he tortured those teens on live tv. Chef ended up deleting the channel while Chris was sleeping to keep him sane.

[grandhotelabyss]

What kind of music do you typically listen to? Are there any musicians that have inspired or influenced your work in any way?

I pretty much answered this one here back at the end of 2023. For an update and more specific answer to your question about inspiration: lately, I've been trying to listen to at least period-specific music as I work on the Invisible College research and preparation, like Beethoven and Chopin paired with the Romantics, some Wagner with Shaw, Rachmaninov with Conrad, etc. I'll make an attempt at Schoenberg when I get to Beckett for the full Adorno trip. The algorithm has really been insisting on Sibelius lately, however, which I'm guessing Adorno would call fascist. (I never read Adorno's music criticism, though I studied—mainly visual art and literature—with one of its distinguished translators.) Also, speaking of fascism, even though I gave Dune: Part Two a bad review, I have been listening to that soundtrack for better or worse; this is a plebeian taste, I'm sure, or maybe "Reddit" or whatever other insult, but I like a lot of the ambient soundtrack music popular on YouTube: Zimmer, Einaudi, Richter, that style of material. For some reason, maybe also algorithmic, I lately went back to that electronica group I remembered from the '90s, VNV Nation, and was interested to see they had some new material; this has been a recent favorite, somewhat relatable lyrics if you ask me. Speaking of the '90s or even the '80s, I listened to a lot of music from that era when I was writing Major Arcana last year to create the appropriate late-20th-century Dark-Age-of-Comics mood, everything from Joy Division and The Smiths up through Portishead and Massive Attack and the like, and Americans, too, my melodramatic preference for Tori Amos and the Smashing Pumpkins being well-known to my regular readers, as well as "Malibu"-era Hole (even if she [allegedly] did kill Kurt, I like "Malibu" better than any of his stuff). That and some of the jazz favored by my character Ellen Chandler, especially Sketches of Spain and A Love Supreme, which are thematically crucial to the novel. What else? I'm excited for the apparent Joanna Newsom revival-comeback. She might be the most inspirational musical artist of my generation just by her example: create your own strange world, and listeners will come. (I wrote a little tribute to her on here a few years ago.) The aforementioned algorithm knows I compared Lana to Shakespeare 10 years ago—she had to forgive the rest of you for how you treated her; she didn't have to forgive me!—so I usually happily let it give me all the visionary "sad girls" past and present. But, and just in case this was a subtext of your question, there being so few ways nowadays to draw the line between macroculture and meso- and microcultures, I must halt at the frontier of Ms. Swift's empire.

[kaizoku-musume]

Clavis: He'd be a prankster channel. Sorry not sorry, we all know that's what he'd do. He at least wouldn't be the kind of "prankster" who assaults random ppl, but he would absolutely film his brothers falling into pit traps and getting strung up in trees. He'd be massively popular, partly bc of his natural charisma but also bc we all know the algorithm would feature his videos.

Lisette: Personally, I don't think she'd be interested in streaming or making videos, but if she was, she'd have a channel where she showed off her weapons collection. I can also see Clavis creating a channel where he films her workouts/fights and posts them without her knowing. She may not be the most popular but she can definitely collect a niche viewership.

Yves: He'd be a beauty youtuber. He would not stay out of all the drama lol, but at least he wouldn't be the cause of it. He'd talk about makeup, outfits, accessories, etc. He'd also focus on the importance of self-confidence and acceptance rather than fear-mongering about aging and how if you didn't use 50 different sun creams you'd get wrinkles. I can see him being really popular.

Aurelia: There is no way in a million years she'd make public videos where her identity can become widely know, but pretending she would, she'd make random videos to keep her viewers on her toes. It wouldn't grant her a huge subscriber base (her followers would be the few ppl who can handle her weird tastes), but she doesn't care about that. One video she's giving an animal lesson on spiders, another she's showing ppl how to make her favourite tea, and the next she's listing which poisons are more reasonable to use for assassinations.

Silvio: I also can't see him willingly being a streamer, but if he was . . . Look, I don't want to be the one to say this, but he absolutely would be one of those guys who makes millions of dollars and posts their morning routine. He just would. You know it, I know it. And he'd get millions of views bc ppl fall for his shit all the time.

Rene: Book reviews. Good books, bad books, mediocre books. Mostly romance, but he'd stray into other genres to keep things fresh. He tries to stay positive about the books he knows the authors really put effort in, but he's not going to sugarcoat what works and what doesn't, what relies too heavily on tropes, etc.

Question Of The Day

If your favorite character was a streamer, what do you think they'd stream? Do you think he'd be popular? Or just a small cozy streamer?

╰❧ Daily Q's can be answered with your voice- or your OC's!

If you'd like to suggest a question, send me an ask! || About This Blog

Divider by @/enchanthings

[fostersffff]

do you have a guide into getting into vtubers?

I can certainly make one up!

Much like any other kind of streamer/LPer/“content creator”, the most important thing is just finding one (or several) that you enjoy watching and- if you’re into stream chat- interacting with. The only thing you may want to be versed in ahead of time are in-jokes and memes (which you’ll catch onto over time by lurking, which should always be your first move when joining a new community) and basic etiquette, ranging from normal stuff like “don’t spam chat, don’t talk about other streams/streamers unless they’re brought up first, especially in the name of DRAMA, you are not friends with the streamer no matter how much/often you participate and/or donate” to more vtuber specific stuff like “don’t doxx them”, which is The Big One™ and ranges from “don’t literally doxx them” to “don’t bring up past handles/identities unless they bring it up first”. If you’re looking for suggestions on who to check out, or what you should be looking for, here’s a very wide scattershot recommendation (bolded text is searchable names):

Being affiliated with a big brand name isn’t an objective measure of quality, but by nature of how networks function there’s way more readily accessible content of vtubers affiliated with those brands. If you go to YouTube and search “Hololive clips” or “Nijisani clips” you’ll get infinitely varied results, but if you’ve never seen a vtuber and are looking for something specific to start with, I’m really partial to Inugame Korone’s English-only Super Mario Bros. playthrough. And if you want to narrow down the search to specific vtubers, try searching for clips of Korone, Usada Pekora, Kiryu Coco, Houshou Marine, Oozora Subaru, Sakura Miko, Omaru Polka, Momosuzu Nene, and Amano Pikamee; all of them tend to have a lot of clips made and a huge backlog of streams.

Speaking of English-only, if you want to actively be engaged with streams and can’t understand Japanese, there are also plenty of English speaking vtubers. The most popular ones far and away are the English branch of Hololive (aka HoloEN or HoloMyth, made up of Amelia Watson, Gawr Gura, Calliope Mori, Ninomae Ina’nis, and Takanashi Kiara), and as well as a number of Indonesian Vtubers, who tend to be extremely fluent in English (Hana Macchia of Nijisani, and Ayunda Risu, Moona Hoshinova, Kureiji Ollie, and the rest of the Indonesian branch of Hololive, aka HoloID). However, if you’re looking more distinctly Western/American vtubers (less of a wholesome/idol-like presentation and more chaotic chat), you should check out one any of VShojo’s members (made up of Nyatasha Nyanners, Ironmouse, Froot, Projekt Melody, Zentreya, Silvervale, Hime Hajime, and Veibae). I’ve become particularly fond of Zentreya, who uses a speech-to-text-to-speech program and an absolute ton of chat interaction gimmicks, but they’re all good people. Also worth noting that most Western/American vtubers stream on Twitch instead of YouTube, but they also usually maintain some kind of YouTube presence, as well as Twitter accounts to keep people notified of where they’re going to be and when.

Past those groups, there are literally thousands upon thousands of much smaller groups and independent vtubers to recommend. As I said before, their relative audience size or independent status isn’t an objective measure of quality, and in fact, one of the nicer things about less immensely popular streamer is that you’ll get the benefit of a less chaotic/more intimate chat experience, but in exchange making sure you’re observing good etiquette is even more important since it’s easier to be disruptive to the chat. Off the top of my head:

The Tsunderia group, spearheaded by Hoshino Charlotte (Char Aznable-themed vtuber who does a lot of figure building on stream and makes/eats horrible food) and Umiushi Urara (Urara is especially fascinating, because she’s the real life manager of the company, and her streams are often more focused on behind the scenes and business-oriented facets of the vtuber industry, but that’s also maybe not the best place to jump in if you’re new)

Artemis of the Blue (a shark vtuber who’s perhaps best known for constantly simping for other vtubers)

Bao (a whale vtuber who also dabbles in making music)

Lady Hatsuu (a English localizer who’s worked on games like Trails in the Sky and takes donations for her local cat shelter)

JiBo (aka Great Black Otaku, aka former NFL player Brennan Williams, aka current WWE superstar Dio Maddin/Mace)

Mimika Morph (a Japanese vtuber who tries to incorporate as much English translation as she can and is literally an eldritch abomination)

Valerie Valkyrie (professional wrestler-themed vtuber who’s appropriately collabed with JiBo a few times)

Go Ria (gorilla (!!!) vtuber)

and Tsukimiya Mai, who actually has a presence on Tumblr, although at the moment I believe she’s on a wellness break.

If you’re not into watching streams at all and want Just The Good Parts, there are tons of channels that exist solely to make (and subtitle) clips, and almost always of already popular vtubers. The most annoying thing with them is that they’ll occasionally get aggressively clickbait-y, but such is the nature of the YouTube algorithm. I personally subscribe to Vtube Tengoku, Sushi [Hololive and Vtubers], CMT, JShay Translations, Aru Azumaya’s Pikamee Things, and Cooksie. The first four tend to focus on Hololive, Aru Azumaya of course is pretty exclusively dedicated to Pikamee, and Cooksie covers VShojo and a smattering of other English vtubers.

Last but not least, there are dedicated fan creators who make animations, usually either of whole clips or by stitching unrelated clips together. My recommendations include 2Snacks, tian nya, Kanauru, and Caroline Director. Just note that especially for these folks and other fan creators, content comes out much slower because of the nature of the work, but it’s always quality.

[sleepy-shutin]

(system community anon) honestly thank you, you just resonated with a lot of things i’ve felt since i figured out i’ve had DID but didn’t have the words to say or was kind of too scared to tbh. i started accepting my DID in later 2019, and started interacting with the online system community at a distance, and then when the pandemic hit i felt really isolated and stressed so i started seeking more friendships and connections with other systems but never really found them tbh. and honestly my opinion of why this is suddenly such a huge thing is primarily due to DID youtubers, particularly dissociaDID if you were also unfortunate enough to witness that whole situation go down. i think it’s youtube in particular because youtubers are sort of the big fandom (for lack of a better word) for a lot of teenagers rn, and the way the algorithm works on there in combination with clickbait can become a dumpster fire of misinfo very quickly. and then this spreads to system tik tok etc etc. but going further back i do think the release of split also has something to do with all of the sudden hypervisibility because that movie i think marked a huge uproar among DIDOSDD systems (rightfully) so there was more of a push for accurate information and representation, but then it’s kind of like the wrong voices were uplifted for the wrong reasons. and then ofc i think this was all exacerbated by the pandemic. sorry to drop another novel in your inbox lmao but i completely agree honestly. i just wish the system community would realize that anyone trying to spread scientific information about DIDOSDD is completely pro-psych or, like, a fakeclaimer or r/fakedisordercringe user or something like that.

yeah, dissociaDID in particular definitely has a hand in everything, for sure. her newest videos just make me recoil.

shockingly though, people like fragmentedpsyche, multiplicity & me, the entropy system if you remember them, etc, have been pretty good resources on DID. but dissociaDID just got the most popular, with her makeup and clickbait and constant milking of all kinds of drama. i used to be a fan of hers back in the day, actually, before shit hit the fan. still wouldn't recommend her even back then, though. she was always spreading misinformation.

yeah, things like tiktok, split, twitter, the pandemic, confusing teenager feelings, etc, all came together to create the perfect storm of massive amounts of DID misinformation.

and yeah--i'm not an FDC user for correcting misinfo or using clinical sources. FDC is a massive proponent of misinformation on DID, lol. i go there to correct misinformation on DID, and then i get downvoted even when i provide sources, lmao.

but sooo many people are just, like, not receptive at all to corrections on misinformation.

i'm so tired, man 😭

[stina-is-a-punk-rocker]

maybe i’m just too old for disney: a 20-year-old hag’s take on ‘encanto’

Being evenhanded is hard. I want to pitch a fit about how much I disliked Encanto.

… Maybe ‘dislike’ is too strong a word. I’ve definitely watched worse movies, and Encanto doesn’t make my Worst-Ever list. It’s just nowhere near my Best, either- which sucks, because I did have high hopes for the film after the YouTube algorithm decided to recommend my K-pop stan, video-essay-loving ass We Don’t Talk About Bruno (which I’ve since been listening to on loop for about a week).

I’ve been told that the film does a pretty solid job of depicting Colombian culture, and I do appreciate how diverse the members of the family Madrigal are. I do wish Disney would pull the plug on the character designs popularized by Frozen, though. It’s been close to a decade, now, Dinsey- we’ve seen every ethnicity a la Anna and Elsa.

The musical numbers were… ehhh. We Don’t Talk About Bruno was the only song that stood out; everything else was pretty mediocre. And I might get crucified for this, but… is it just me, or were the vocals just. Not good. They weren’t bad, per se, but they weren’t good, either. Take this with a grain of salt, because I know jackshit about vocal techniques and skill- so I’ll just stick with saying: a lot of them didn’t sound nice.

Bruno, though. Bruno was the saving grace. I love that funky lil dude.

Abuela, though. She can eat shit. If she’d died at the end, I would’ve rated this five stars, no problem. She triggered way too many memories of way too many authority figures I’ve had the misfortune of encountering in my life, and I want her dead.

All jokes aside, her character arc was decent as far as kids’ films go. The contrast between her younger self in the story she tells Maribel at the beginning- pretty stoic while her husband is murdered in front of her- to the truth- where she’s a lot more emotional- is pulled off pretty well.

I’ll end this with the dumbest, most insignificant nitpick I have (because I still haven’t worked out how to write a proper conclusion, goddammit): wouldn’t Julieta’s cooking have cured Maribel’s myopia?

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Youtube, fair use, competition, and the death of the artist

Today we have three major record labels, the meanest, most voracious gobblers-up of the competition, companies that clawed their way to global dominance through absolute ruthlessness, particularly to the musicians who did the work that brought in the money. For example: the Beatles earned $0.01/record. Split four ways. But 15% of that was creamed off by the label to account for "promotional copies" that they later admitted they sold at full price without giving the Beatles their (one penny* of royalties. When Napster and other digital distribution platforms appeared, many musicians were angry about them, but many were hopeful: was this - finally - a way to be free of the labels? It was! For a while. The subsequent record industry lawsuits combined with runaway mergers and acquisitions in *both* tech (5 giants) *and* entertainment (4 studios, 4ish publishers, 3 labels) killed the dream of a pluralistic, fair alternative to the content oligarchy. This was confirmed when Youtube launched its music service in the early part of the past decade. After hammering out a deal with the Big Four (now three) labels, YT told all the independent artists and labels that this would be their deal too - or they could leave Youtube. In other words, Youtube was now an honorary member of the Big Four (now three) and every musician in the world who wanted access to the monopoly audio-video distribution platform would have to toe the Big Four's (now three) line...or else. The fusion of Youtube with the big entertainment companies includes a complete disregard for fair use - the limitations and exceptions to copyright that are so necessary to free speech, criticism, and new artistic expression. It's hard to square copyright with the First Amendment ("Congress shall make no law.. abridging the freedom of speech"). I wrote this, it attracted a copyright at the moment of fixation, and now the US government gives me to the power to bar you from repeating it. How can a government that is constitutionally barred from abridging your speech also have a law telling you what you're allowed to say? The Supreme Court explored this in Eldred v Ashcroft, with RBG calling fair use copyright's "safety valve." Fair use is how you can ban people from saying stuff without abridging their free speech: it allows for transformation, criticism, commentary, education, parody, archiving and a host of other uses. Without fair use, copyright is unconstitutional censorship. In 2007, Viacom sued Youtube for $1b; the court released emails between Viacom execs admitting that their goal was to "steal" Youtube and take it over (the emails were *very* sweary and included vicious fights about which exec would get to run YT) https://www.fastcompany.com/1588353/steal-it-and-other-internal-youtube-emails-viacoms-copyright-suit As the suit was making its way through the courts, Youtube launched Content ID, its automated takedown system. Content ID - which cost $100m to build and run - allowed select rightsholders to "claim" certain audio and video elements as their copyrights. Content ID scours uploaded videos for matches to claimed works, then (depending on rightsholders' preferences), Content ID either removes the matching video, takes the money it is generating, or (if it's ad-free) puts ads all over it and gives the money to the rightsholder. And Content ID can't figure out if a use is fair or not. No algorithm can. How software tell if something is parody? If it's commentary? If it's sufficiently transformative to constitute a fair use? It can't, and so Content ID doesn't. What do you get when you mix automated takedown, entertainment and tech monopolies and the absolute annihilation of fair use? The contemporary arts world. https://www.eff.org/wp/unfiltered-how-youtubes-content-id-discourages-fair-use-and-dictates-what-we-see-online In a superb white paper, my EFF colleague Katharine Trendacosta painstakingly documents how Youtube transfers gigantic sums from working artists to rent-collecting rightsholders in a system that incentivizes false copyright claims and punishes those who appeal automated verdicts. The paper starts by documenting how Content ID *really* works, and shows how the pretty, streamlined, easy to follow flowcharts that YT publishes to prove that it has a fair and transparent systems are a sham.

The reality is a giant, gnarly hairball of rules, threats, ultimatums and dire punishments, where videos that pass muster one day can be taken down the next, and where challenging the robot (or a rightsholder) can annihilate your Youtube account - and thus your artistic career.

It's a system where creators producing major video essays can upload them in five minute chunks to YT to check for copyright claims, find none, piece the whole feature together and upload it - only to get five copyright claims. It's a system where a ten-hour video of white noise attracts *six* copyright claims - one for an "infringement" that allegedly lasted for less than *one second*. Trendacosta's paper revolves around deep interviews with three very different Youtubers. The first is Hbomberguy, a long-form video essayist with 600k subscribers, who spends weeks playing blind man's bluff with Content ID, slicing more and more sections out of his video to get rid of copyright claims (and doing it over again when the algorithm changes). The second is Todd Nathanson, a musicologist who produces videos that dive deep into one-hit wonders and other musical oddities. He has given up on getting any of the money his wildly popular videos generate through YT ads; it's impossible to fend off the Content ID robots. Instead, Nathanson relies on Patreon subscribers to pay his bills, and allows the rightholders who lay claim to the money from his legal, canonical-fair-use musical excerpts to simply steal the money he is entitled to. Finally, there's Lindsay Ellis, a bestselling novelist with 1m subscribers who has been shunted from one service to the next as all of Youtube's competitors were driven out of business, landing on Youtube after she ran out of alternatives. Ellis's high profile means she can sometimes actually reach a human being at Youtube to discuss copyright claims against her work, but they are monumentally unhelpful. Ellis knows an awful lot about copyright, but that's actually a detriment when it comes to Content ID. That's because defending yourself to the Content ID system means that rightsholders can deny your defense and generate "copystrikes" against your account. Rack up three strikes and your account gets suspended or even deleted. Ellis wonders "why I bothered playing by the rules all these years because fair use doesn’t matter. Content ID is all that matters." Youtube's Content ID statistics are opaque and out of date, but Trendacosta estimates that the system rendered automated judgements in 122,500,000 copyright claims in 2017, a number that has surely climbed since. Once, creators dreamed of the internet as an escape hatch from the airtight cell that the Big Four (now three) labels had crammed all the world's music into. Today, most creators have been corralled into a single online platform. That platform colludes with the Big Three to misappropriate the incomes of artists who never signed their one-sided record deals, and the ripoff continues with a long tail of penny-ante grifters who claim copyrights over silence, white noise and birdsong.

[endcant]

aimless musings on subgenre, citypop, and internet subcultures

theres something very interesting about watching citypop become very mainstream in korea and watching that feed back into both western listeners’ opinions and also into the sometimes-cynical efforts of a variety of kpop producers

a lot of people in the youtube/kpop sphere talk about the growth of citypop as if it were a spontaneous wave that appeared out of nowhere with mariya takeuchi’s plastic love getting picked up by the youtube algorithm in like 2018 or whatever, but thats a very like online-ignorant view of the interaction between vintage japanese music and worldwide online EDM production. citypop has been used in future funk and vaporwave for almost a decade by now, and, as a result, a number of citypop songs took off on social media here and there before plastic love’s acceleration— dress down by kaworu akimoto is one of the big examples off the top of my head, but there’s likely many many more.

“Plastic Love” by Mariya Takeuchi (1984). if you haven’t heard this yet, you’d better listen to it now. The video that first went viral was uploaded in 2017

“Selfish High Heels” by Yung Bae, Macross 82-99, and Harrison (2014) is a popular Future Funk remixes of Dress Down by Kaoru Akimoto (1986)

people who haven’t been very aesthetically literate online over the years— musically or visually, since those things are tied in subcultures— treat things like they come from nowhere. there are ongoing subcultural conversations that lead to certain aesthetic choices, and when someone tries to cash in on a trend without understanding what the trend is, that leads people to call bullshit. calling bullshit is not meanspirited, in my opinion, because it very much is like somebody who can’t speak a language getting up in front of everybody and saying “hey, i’m fluent!” and then speaking some vaguely that-language-sounding nonsense. of course people who genuinely speak that language will be outraged instinctively. it feels like being mocked.

that’s why the difference between music producers picking up on a trend cynically and music producers picking up on a trend with earnest interest in that trend’s origins feels different, even if the producers are similarly distant from the original subculture that produced that trend.

“Lady” by Yubin (2018) committed hard to the 80s JP citypop aesthetic, musically and visually, down to the sets, all fairly early in the major resurgence.

i’m sure that anyone with a passing familiarity with citypop and kpop can ascertain that not all kpop producers know what citypop is and what makes it citypop. all they know is that it is on-trend and they have to make it. not all kpop listeners know what citypop is and what makes it citypop. all they know is their idol said citypop as a buzzword in their little prepared statement. all this results in some interesting moments for me as a Music Fan, Online.

here is where i get to the thing that spurred this post: loona “did a citypop” for their japanese comeback. it doesnt sound like citypop.

“Hula Hoop (Citypop Version)” by Loona (2021). It has very odd percussion rhythms and mixing for citypop, no real attempt at a citypop verse, and strangely sparse gestures towards citypop in the form of a few seconds of bass and some synthesized orchestral embellishments that were taken from the original mix …all in spite of a very disco-inspired melody that should have worked perfectly for citypop

this is not a very big deal, and im not mad about it or anything. when a kpop act i like gets saddled with an unfortunate B-Side track i dont tend to take it very hard. however, it did raise a little bit of musical discourse in the loona fandom— in the form of remixes.

“hula hoop if it was actually a citypop song” by loonahatetwinks and Olivia Soul on youtube. this one has an original instrumental that is spot-on for contemporary k-citypop

My most favorite one of these remixes is a futurefunk remix by ZSunder, one of the very best LOONA fan producers. The fact that ZSunder thought to make a future funk remix at all speaks more to an understanding of the mutually supportive relationship between citypop and EDM genres than most kpop citypop producers or fanmixers seem to care to know about.

“Hula Hoop (Future Funk Mix)” by ZSunder is futurefunk made and mixed with such love that it has the infectious summery energy of a polished, big-name future funk hit

in the comments of this video, some people seemed to get the citypop-future funk connection and some didnt. many did get it, don’t get me wrong! but also, its not all that surprising for some kpop-focused listeners to not know much about EDM subcultures and the reasons behind various trends among producers, since kpop as an institution tends to take influences from any genre and culture it likes and then decontextualize those influences by just having their names used as buzzwords in the blurbs the idols have to recite when variety show hosts ask them about their latest single. this isn’t a criticism of the genre or the fans really, it’s just a part of the kpop industry that is used to add shine to an endless firehose-like stream of polished pop tracks. there are some issues with using whole genres and subcultures with complex histories as buzzwords, but god help us if we ever want a pop industry to give its influences their dues.

anyway, the intention behind ZSunder’s future funk Hula Hoop remix happened to remind me me of why i love Yukika’s discography so much, especially the Soul Lady album. I’ve seen some reviews online baffled by parts of Soul Lady, because the album in general is an exploration of that relationship between citypop and modern/internet EDM. i’ve seen plenty of Soul Lady reviews especially baffled by pit-a-pet, saying something along the lines of “what’s with the modern-sounding dance track in the middle of a retro album?”, but i think that pit-a-pet is a futurefunk-inspired track, at least in the chorus. considering both that and the Chill Lo-Fi Interludes, it seems like estimate’s team put together Soul Lady for Yukika in a way that shows that they love citypop and understand the online-specific electronic music subcultures that led to citypop’s resurgence.

“pit-a-pet” by Yukika (2020). the stacatto, bass heavy chorus is futurefunk enough, but the soaring orchestral part in the final chorus seals the deal for my interpretation.

“All Flights Are Delayed (1 hour version)” by Yukika (2020). Estimate literally released an hour-long youtube mix of one of the Lo-Fi interludes on Soul Lady as part of their promotion, clearly inspired by “Lo-Fi anime beats to chill out to,” which is another example of online producers from around the world using Japanese samples as a focal point of their music

Estimate, in the end, is still a Kpop production company, just the same as BBC, so they have no inherent claim over citypop, but the way that their exploration of subgenres clearly comes from passion and interest on the part of their production staff makes it so that their work with Yukika rings true. on the other hand, i really appreciate Ryan S. Jhun’s work on LOONA’s JP comeback, as well as on Not Friends, but the citypop mix thing was so clearly an afterthought to the point where fans of Loona who like citypop seem mostly just irritated by the cynical-seeming attempt.

heres one last good modern kpop citypop MV that has nods to the internet culture that led to its revival in the form of the videography— vaporwave, future funk, lofi, and other internet genres along those lines tend to have videos consisting of looping anime and vhs clips. future funk in particular is known for this, especially since a lot of future funk music, esp early future funk, is just loops of very short, catchy segments of citypop and disco songs. it’s all about the loops

“My Type” by Yoon JongShin ft. Miyu Takeuchi (2019). This song is so dedicated to the retro JP citypop sound that it’s almost beyond my personal taste. The singer, Miyu, was a headlining act at a seoul citypop festival and sang this song as part of her act (:

this video of “Only One” by Conscious Thoughts (2015) has a looped clip as an example for comparison with My Type. it also has a pulsing sidechain compressor working in time with its drum beat in a way that is common for future funk and that i think is a good example for my pit-a-pet yukika comparison to future funk

i guess the takeaway here is that media is more and more online, and the creation and propagation of digital audio and video content has been in the hands of literally almost anybody who wants to do it for the past two decades thanks to garage band and fruityloops and audacity and tiktok and youtube and bandcamp and soundcloud and myspace and newgrounds and p2p file sharing and so on and so forth. and therefore like… as with all things, the consumer class more and more is also the creator class, and therefore every member of an audio-visual subculture will have the ability to discern what is and isnt made with knowledge of the audio-visual language of that subculture

[xb-squaredx]

Rise of the V-Tuber

As a platform, YouTube has gone through a variety of “eras,” wherein a particular trend catches on and defines the website for some time. In the early days, you had funny cat videos, then Let’s Plays of video games became rather popular, and now we seem to be deeply entrenched into a new era that has exploded in popularity as of late. If you’ve frequented the website at all in the past few months, it is almost inescapable. Cutesy, anime-styled avatars that play games, sing, chat with viewers, or even cook! What does it all mean? Where did they come from? Are they here to stay? Most importantly, how does one crawl out of the rabbit hole once they fall into it? All that and more will be revealed as we delve deep into the wacky, wholesome and sometimes worrying world of V-Tubers. (photo credit YuuGiJoou. Check her out on YouTube, Twitter or Twitch!) 

THE ORIGIN

To begin properly, let’s define the subject. A “V-Tuber” is a “Virtual YouTuber,” someone who streams on YouTube (or any other streaming platform) using a digital avatar as a proxy. The streamer in question typically uses face-tracking software so that the avatar can emote (or at least attempt to emote) to match their own reactions as they provide entertainment for their audience. While it may seem as if V-Tubers are rather new, in doing research on the topic, you’d be surprised how far back things go.

For starters, the concept of a virtual celebrity has been around for a while, with one of the most notable efforts being Hatsune Miku, a Vocaloid voicebank program. Hatsune Miku is every bit as famous and beloved as a flesh-and-blood singer or entertainer despite being nothing but voice synthesizer software. Vocaloid got its start back in 2000, eventually being reworked into a commercial product in 2004, though it wasn’t until the programs started receiving anthropomorphic character designs that it took off, with Hatsune Miku’s own debut in 2007, and the rest is history.

Many will consider “Virtual Idol” Kizuna Ai as the true pioneer of what we call a V-Tuber today, making her debut in 2016, however one could make an argument that Ami Yamato, a 3D-animated vlogging channel debuting in 2013, beat her to the punch. Honorable mention of course goes to Any Malu, a Brazilian animated YouTube vlogger who debuted in 2015 and eventually gained her own show on Cartoon Network Brazil. While Ai may not be the first, she is undoubtedly considered to be the codifier that many later V-Tubers would follow. Ai’s entire shtick was being an AI program that wanted to connect with humans, playing games, singing or interacting with fans. Following her explosive popularity, it was clear that other companies would follow the model established by Ai, with their own spins on it of course.

Nijisanji, established in 2018, proved that this trend could be incredibly profitable, becoming trailblazers in their own right as they established various “branches” of their company in several countries with their own unique performers that could cater to a wider range of viewers. As of this writing, Nijisanji employs over 164 “Virtual Livers,” most of which come from their Japan branch, alongside their Korean, Chinese, Indian and Indonesian branches. Similarly, there is the Hololive corporation, which saw substantial growth throughout 2020 in particular. Established in 2016 originally as Cover Corporation, at first Hololive was the name of an app meant for use in 3D motion capture, though following Nijisanji’s success, Hololive was rebranded as a V-Tuber competitor and also features a variety of colorful characters spread across many different main branches. There is of course the Japanese branch, as well as Hololive Indonesia, the relatively new (and highly successful) Hololive English, a defunct Chinese branch and an all-male Holostar branch in Japan.

Other, smaller V-Tuber groups have sprung up alongside the corporate powerhouses, such as VOMS Project, established in March of 2020, as an independent trio of streamers, and more recently at the tail-end of 2020 with V-Shojo, featuring a group of Western streamers (who ironically mostly stick to Twitch). Outside of this of course are the countless independent streamers who utilize avatars for one reason or another across many different platforms. Even prominent Twitch streamers seem to be getting in on the act, such as Pokimane, though that one has not come without some backlash. So consider that a rough history of how V-Tubers got started in Japan but how did they gain a more global fanbase? Well, in a word…”memes.”

GOING INTERNATIONAL

I won’t deny there had to be at least SOME overseas fans who enjoyed watching V-Tubers before they became more well-known, but for many Western fans their introductions to V-Tubers in general typically came from viral videos taken from various streams that spread like wildfire, eventually getting people curious enough to check them out. For Kizuna Ai, her playthrough of Resident Evil 7 gained notoriety for her mimicking the cursing of the English-speaking player character, and for Hololive, arguably the first real Western breakthrough for the company came from a now infamous moment from Sakura Miko’s stream of Grand Theft Auto 5. 

Also from Hololive, Inugami Korone in particular had a variety of memes spread about her due to playthroughs from various games that even got acknowledged by the developers themselves. Her playthrough of DOOM 2016 resulted in a short-lived Easter egg implanted into DOOM Eternal, and her video on Banjo-Kazooie (and the animated Eekum Bokum fan video that spawned from that) got the attention of Rare, Xbox and even Grant Kirkhope, the composer for the original game.

Honestly, the real unsung heroes of sorts for V-Tuber popularity might just come from foreign fans that would clip and translate various moments from streams that helped to build an international audience. There are dozens of Twitter handles and YouTube channels that specialize in spreading these clips around and if you factor in the YouTube algorithm, once you see one video your feed will be flooded with similar videos. It is no surprise fans call getting into the fandom “falling into the rabbit hole.” When you look at the more popular members of Hololive, often the ones with various viral clips have the higher subscription counts. In the case of Aki Rosenthal, one of the older members, her sub count exploded after a fan translated a section from a then-recent stream in which she talked candidly about her less-than-stellar growth as well as the difficulties of standing out in general. While at one point having the lowest amount of subscribers (well below 200,000), in the months since that video her sub count has more than doubled going past 400,000. Sometimes the talent needs a little push.

Now, within Hololive itself, I think Kiryu Coco is also partially responsible for expanding the fanbase, being one of the few employed talents with the ability to speak English (likely a native speaker), she gained a large international fanbase as she would work to translate what she or other members were talking about on the fly, and later on established an ongoing series where she would directly engage with fans over websites like Reddit and “rate” the various memes they would send in. Coco also pushed for establishing what would become Hololive English, which has proven to be a gigantic success, each member of that branch blowing past more established talent’s subscriber counts, with Gawr Gura becoming the first Hololive V-Tuber to pass one million subscribers and just recently passed the two million mark. So yeah, V-Tubers are a big deal now but…what is about them that makes people want to watch them in the first place?

THE APPEAL

So, right off the bat, if we’re going to ask why someone would want to watch a V-Tuber I think it’s fair to ask that of virtually ANY internet personality. The reason why someone would watch Game Grumps or Pokimane or Jojo Siwa or whoever else is the same reason they’d watch Kizuna Ai or Inugami Korone or Ironmouse: they’re entertaining. I guess that seems like a bit of a cop-out answer, right? There MUST be a reason why V-Tubers have blown up in popularity over the last few years, so are there things that make these particular Internet entertainers stand out from the crowd?

Undoubtedly, the fact that these streamers are playing a character is a deviation from the norm, though the dedication to staying “in character” seems to vary from person to person, and over time many V-Tubers tend to open up and are far more genuine. At any rate, even the best actor out there can’t possibly make up various daily happenings or childhood stories for their characters on the fly, day after day, stream after stream. Still, I’d imagine the decision to use a proxy as opposed to their real self can be liberating, a mask they can wear to speak more freely or a role they can play up for entertainment. For the most part, I think the persona aspect is mostly harmless fun that makes the streamer seem more distinct; ask yourself which is more eye-catching: some normal human playing a game and occasionally cracking a joke, or a one-eyed pirate girl discussing her raunchy past? Or maybe you’d rather watch the grim reaper practice her raps? Even talent that don’t really play up their character much still often have interesting character designs; we have princesses, dragons, devils, robots and more. A little something for everyone!

Speaking a bit more personally, I find it interesting to watch streamers from an entirely different culture and how they interact with fans or engage with games. I find it funny when Inugami Korone or Sakura Miko plays more Western-oriented games like the DOOM series or Grand Theft Auto V respectively. Often times they’re blown away by the culture clash, or they view these games through a different lens since it’s so different from what they’re used to. In particular, those two are just genuine goofballs that are funny all on their own. More chat-focused streams are an interesting view into daily life in Japan, such as the stories Houshou Marine tells, though obviously a given V-Tuber’s viewpoint isn’t a metric you can apply to the whole country, but she’s still interesting to listen to. Takanashi Kiara is also notable for her multilingual skills, which has helped her bridge the gap a bit more between the various Hololive members through her Holotalk segments where she interviews other V-Tubers. Outside of Hololive, Amano Pikamee from VOMS Project is just a bundle of energy that’s fun to watch as she rages in Super Mario 64 or Super Mario Sunshine. Her tea-kettle laugh is also just kinda charming. The V-Shojo group stands out for being super vulgar compared to the more corporate V-Tubers and while I don’t watch them all that much, there’s still some fun chaos to be had. Still though, I think there’s one big elephant in the room that would also help explain V-Tubers catching on at this specific point in time: the pandemic. Streaming is one of the few jobs not really affected by the pandemic, and with people stuck inside, they’re more likely to scroll through YouTube or Twitter and find a funny clip and then…well, you know… It’s one bright spot in an otherwise dark time…but I’d be lying if I said it was all sunshine and rainbows.

THE DARK UNDERBELLY

The overall idea behind V-Tubers, at least in Japan, seems to be an extension of Idol Culture…and uh…if you know anything about Idol Culture in Japan, it is all kinds of scummy. Exploitative, filled to the brim with harmful rules and regulations and largely catering to some vary unsavory “fans,” I’ll make it no mystery that I find it incredibly distasteful. Look no further than what happened to Minegishi Minami from the idol group AKB48. To keep a long story short, the obsession with “purity” and being this idealized Japanese beauty means idols are effectively locked into their work, unable to discuss or in many cases partake in romantic relationships, as that would make them less “desirable” to their audience. This unfortunately does at times extend to V-Tubers.

Take Tokoyami Towa, who was suspended for some time and forced to make an apology video for…having some male voices briefly heard over Discord during an Apex Legend stream. She even lost a lot of subscribers and support from Japanese fans following this, though once learning of this, Western fans flocked to her as a show of support. Hololive has also dealt with a variety of issues coming from Chinese fans; though that’s a particular hornet’s nest I don’t want to delve into here too much. To sum it up, fans can get obsessive and toxic, which can lead to the talent being harassed. It is for this reason, it is generally agreed upon by fans to not delve too deep into the personal lives of the V-Tubers, for fear of being doxxed and the illusion being broken. These kinds of issues certainly bring up some interesting questions regarding how talent should be treated moving forward.

Are these V-Tubers characters or just alternate sides of real people? Where does the fantasy end and reality begin? Ultimately, the lines are somewhat blurred. Talent certainly brings some of their own personality into the performance, but they are forced to remain anonymous and as can be seen in the case of Kizuna Ai, they are not always in control of the character they’ve been given. Kizuna Ai’s initial actress was for a time replaced, and “clones” of the character with different voices and personalities started to spring up, likely as an attempt to compete with the likes of Nijisanji and Hololive. In cases where V-Tubers retire from the industry, or “graduate” as some call it, all of their hard work cultivating a fanbase might end up being for nothing as they were forced behind a proxy that isn’t truly themselves and I imagine it can be hard to start over again from square one. Never mind the attempts to step out of the shadow of your older work. Man, Perfect Blue was downright prophetic at times, huh?

I don’t want to dwell on the negatives too much though. It’s worth noting for one thing that Nijisanji seems relatively lax regarding how their talent operates, whereas it seems Hololive is the standout for adhering to the idol ideal, though considering how some of the talent acts (in particular Kiryu Coco), one has to wonder if they’re softening their stances a bit. Many V-Tubers generally talk about the positive aspects of the industry and being given the opportunity to reach people from all over the world. Shortly after Ina’s debut in Hololive English, she was actually brought to tears when told her art streams convinced people to get into (or back into) the hobby, which had been one of her goals for becoming a V-Tuber in the first place. Ironmouse, now a member of V-Shojo, has an immune system disorder that keeps her bedridden and forced to stay inside, so the opportunities afforded by this particular type of streaming has allowed her to reach out to others and as per her own words, has changed her life for the better. While there are definitely “fans” that go too far, corporate practices that are outdated, or harmful and a slew of potential unfortunate implications, ultimately I think most people out there are just looking for quality entertainment, and these digital proxies give these entertainers an outlet to connect with fans in a way that they might not have otherwise.

CONCLUSION

V-Tubers are in a bit of a boom at the moment, though I can’t imagine it’ll last forever. We’re quickly approaching market saturation and after a point, people can only follow so many streamers at once. Hell, as I was editing this up, it seems as if prominent YouTuber Pewdiepie is about to step into the ring, so who knows what kind of shake-up that could bring. The bubble will undoubtedly burst and what becomes of V-Tubers then is still up in the air. Or who knows, maybe V-Tubers will endure and replace all entertainment and we’re just watching the beginning of a cyberpunk dystopia. Stranger things have happened! Considering the world is still reeling from the effects of the pandemic, that should largely have an impact on the popularity of V-Tubers for some time to come, though as we emerge into a “new normal” in the world, it’ll be interesting to see how these entertainers continue to evolve. Now, I suppose there is one question I never quite went over before now, isn’t there? How does one escape the V-Tuber rabbit hole? Well, I’m sorry to say but there is no escape.

Enjoy your new home!

-B