April 23rd 2020.
A date that changed the course of Vtubing for the Western World,
more than any other event before it Hololive announced
that additions were open for an English-speaking Branch.
What followed was an explosion of interest in vtubing, which came
to its peak in September, vtubing was not unheard of nor was it only exclusive to whole life or
its primary competitor.
Nijisanji, people like ironmouse were active as early as 2017 and
kizuna AI.
While not an English speaker has been around since December 2016
before that programs like facerig Studio had to come out.
And in fact, I fondly remember streaming with it almost six years ago,
even though my computer couldn't really handle it.
So why did it take until 2020 for Vtubing to gain its popularity?
I think there are many factors which contribute to this but the most
obvious to me is accessibility animating models has been around for
quite a long time but its use has been mostly restricted to the movie
TV or gaming spaces. Getting a custom model made especially for you.
Streaming wasn't the thought that many people outside the vrchat
community had.
And even if they did, their computer might not have been able to run
it today.
Computers have done much more powerful, the quality and speed of
artists has grown dramatically and the availability of models
programs.
And community help has increased.
The number of tutorials about be Vtubing, is at an all-time high and
the price of entry has never been lower, but simply vtubing has
gotten so much easier that it was only a matter of time before The
Perfect Storm would hit.
Hololive, debuted their English-speaking wave.
Holomyth on September 12th.
2020 beginning with Mori Calliope, she was quickly followed by
Takanashi Kiara, Ninomae Ina'nis, Gawr Gura and then finally Amelia Watson
These 5 broke many previously held records for both subscribers
gained and concurrent viewer ship among vtubers.
Gawr Gura in particular out stands because she was the first hololive member to gain 1 million YouTube subscribers and is currently
the number one, most subscribed Vtuber in the world, this level of
success, quite obviously, let others to join what was rapidly,
becoming a bold new trend.
Those who have beautiful models ready for this quickly
exploding in popularity, as there was a lack of diversity in the
vtubing sphere many thought that simply having a good model, would bring
high levels of success.
And for a while it did but then came the tidal wave of indie vtubers. In a
rather short space of time we went from Hololive plus a few other
big-name be vtubers, too literal thousand.
Not only were indie vtubers able to make models of similar or higher
quality than hololive.
But the explosion of Interest managed to tempt some of the big names
and content creation to give it a shot.
Even if only for a short time people like lilypichu, PewDiePie and
Pokimane are all examples of creators who tried be vtubing in their
own way, which in turn exposed even more to the hobby. By the end of
2020,
vtubers said already fully integrated into the content creation,
sphere, and had a second injection of Interest by Nijisanji,
who also held their own English-speaking auditions.
Twitter Instagram, Tik Tok, YouTube and twitch while now had thriving
vtuber communities, but the novelty of the genre was starting to fade
Around this time.
many began to wonder what the longevity of vtubing would be and
if it could maintain its mainstream relevance for a longer
period of time. We're well over a year since the original announcement and
Hololive has even debuted a member of their Vsinger singer group
project Hope.
Nijisanji has debuted two waves of English-speaking Talent
with a second round of auditions ending on August 1st 2021.
Multiple agencies have appeared for vtubing talent and some
corporations have even sponsored
their own vtubers. Interest has slowly been raising overtime at least
according to Google Trends and we've hit a point with vtubing
where it's a recognized as a legitimate content creation, genre.
And not just a gimmick, we seen Idol performances, original songs,
skits memes and we continually see new ways of using the technology new
techniques for model of creation, and new programs to make getting
into the hobby.
Impossibly easy, we've even reached the point where you don't have to
have any software on your computer.
abd can run a model via a web page. Vtubing is here to stay because
vtubers are always ready to innovate and always will be.
I know I'm excited to see what vtubing can and will become and I
hope you're all going to join me on the journey.
If you're wondering if vtubing is right for you, there's a video
linked In, the card and video description and as always
If you enjoyed the video, drop a like and I'll see you next time.