Hi everyone, I'm Zhicong Lu from the City University of Hong Kong.
Today I'm going to talk about an emerging form of content creator,
virtual YouTubers, also known as VTubers.
Live streaming is becoming increasingly widespread around the world. It enables
streamers to share their gameplay and real life experiences in real time,
and broadcast their live performance such as singing to engage thousands of viewers.
Prior research on live streaming has mostly focused on real person, finding that the
realness afforded by streaming is the key factor that makes them engaging and popular.
However, the emerging trend of VTubers in East Asia seems to contradict this.
VTubers are virtual 2D or 3D avatars that are voiced by human voice actors or Nakanohitos.
They're gaining traction on YouTube and Bilibili with dedicated fan bases. However,
there is a limited understanding of VTubers in HCI and live streaming research.
To better understand the socio-technological phenomena of VTubers and viewers' practices
and perceptions of watching VTubers, we conducted interview-based studies with 21
dedicated VTubers viewers who had extensive experiences watching VTubers in china.
I'll highlight some key findings here.
We found several motivations specific to the subculture community.
A lot of viewers watch VTubers to engage with Otaku subculture-related content and to interact
with their favorite anime characters. Some just watch out of curiosity and creativity.
Some seek relaxation and entertainment which is similar to watching real person streamers.
The most common VTuber activities include gaming, where VTubers play video games;
singing, where VTubers sing songs in a fancy virtual environment;
or simply chatting, where they chat and tell stories.
In comparison with real-person streamers,
VTuber content tended to align more with the Otaku subculture.
For example, they emphasized creative program planning.
Virtual avatars afford several novel performative opportunities.
For example, during this co-streaming session, these streamers switched
their avatars to achieve an effect of switching personalities, producing some dramatic effects.
Another unique performative opportunity is co-streaming with real-person streamer.
For example, they can either stream as if they're in an Augmented Reality
environment or present in a physical device or display to co-stream with a real person.
Talking about personal daily lives of Nakanohitos and real-world events are favored by viewers. This
brings them closer to the streamers and even makes viewers have more empathy with VTubers.
Because of the virtual avatar, viewers are more acceptable to behaviors that may be
stupid or inappropriate for a real person. They also focus more on the content and
performance than the voice actor when watching VTuber's content.
The identities of VTubers are also dynamically changing and up to viewers' own interpretation.
VTubers can entertain viewers with different personas.
VTubers can also be more easily integrated into viewers' daily life.
For example, some viewers purchase garage kits or figurines of their favorite VTubers.
Viewers also intentionally maintained disembodiment between the Nakanohito
and the avatar, so that they can maintain perfect impressions.
This leads to some viewers' indifference towards corporations replacing Nakanohitos, that as
long as the quality of the performance does not decrease, they are fine with replacing Nakanohito.
However, when asked to further reflect on this,
some viewers noted that they cared about the fairness for Nakanohito's labor
and that agencies should be transparent and fair when replacing Nakanohitos.
Drawing on our findings, we further discuss VTubers' dynamic and multi-layer
identities and their invisible labor. Please refer to our paper for more details.
Thank you very much!