♪ (upbeat techno intro) ♪
- ♪ (Kizuna Ai sings in Japanese) ♪
- Kizuna Ai, VTuber extraordinaire. I know this song too, which is sad.
- They got the dance moves. - What is this?
- It's very visually appealing to say the least.
- I used to watch a lot of Kizuna Ai. I don't think she started
the VTuber thing, but she popularized it for sure.
- Oh! They brought people into it. - Oh my gosh! They're so cute!
- (FBE) VTubers, or Virtual Tubers, are anime girls usually,
who livestream a variety of content, including AMAs, react videos, singing,
let's plays, and so much more. - I've heard the term before,
but I have never seen them. I don't really know much about them.
- People that really know about VTubers
are people who enjoy anime in general. So, it makes sense for people
to not really know what it is if they don't watch too much anime
or don't know about anime communities.
- (FBE) So, let's take a look behind the scenes of a VTube shoot
from an independent content creator, CodeMiko, on Twitch,
so we can see how this works. - Okay, please. Yes.
I would love to know more. - (CodeMiko) Hello! Okay, hi!
How's it going? So, there's a lot of new people here today.
You know, it would be kind of cool to give you guys a quick, quick demo
of CodeMiko. Hello! My brain is melting.
Okay, well, that's not good. - What?! I wanna do this!
Wow! They can even show the whole entire body.
That is crazy. - (CodeMiko) How else do you think
I got into this chair? - Oh my god. That is so interesting.
It's so crazy how realistic that looks. Every little bit blinks
and the smiles and the stutters. Everything is highlighted.
That's very interesting. - I know that it's taken
until the iPhone X for us to have things like Animojis
and stuff like that, and this blows that out the water.
Wow, that's really cool. - (CodeMiko) Wait,
do you wanna see it? Here! - (girl) Oh, no, no, no!
- (CodeMiko) Look! It's just my shoe! - (girl) Miko just showin' feet.
- (CodeMiko) Yeah. What? It's-- that-- they're nice shoes!
- (laughs) CodeMiko's hilarious. Oh my-- I love how chat
just goes across her chest. Gives people a reason to look, I guess.
But I like how high quality her room is, you know?
It's super well lit, everything. Her model is very well animated.
The effort she puts in is really cool. - That's crazy. And I also love
how she is supportive and she shows, like,
how she does it and her process behind it all,
so it's not just a mystery in this space.
Everyone's sitting behind their computer.
They have nothing better to do, and everyone's just kind of trying
to discover new things, find out things that they like,
things that they don't. And, I guess, as--
you know, you have so much time at home.
I guess these YouTubers find a way to take their content
to the next level. Audiences love that
and find it intriguing to see something
that they've never seen before. And so, I'm not surprised
that they are doing really well in the YouTube scene.
- Honestly, I call it right now. Anais calls it.
That's gonna be the future. I kid you not.
♪ (soft piano music) ♪
- (Ironmouse) Oh! Hello! - Is she good?
- (Ironmouse) Hello, everyone. (laughs)
Move you?! (hyperventilates)
Okay. Okay.
Please look respectfully. Well, what do you think?
Oh, feet! Oh, feet, feet! Feet, feet! Sorry, sorry.
Feet! Do you like it?! Do you like feet?!
- No, no, no. No. Okay, yeah. Don't-- please, no!
I don't wanna see her feet. I'm good.
- Super interesting. Very out of the normal for me.
I don't watch anime, but it's interesting to see
where the direction of content is moving.
- I will say that it also distorts body image obviously.
The people that already do it now are creating themselves
in this likeness that they would want to be.
However, because anime is SO extra-- and I'm not gonna be light on that.
Anime is very extra. Honestly, you can achieve anything
with cosmetic surgery, obviously. Would I recommend it? No.
It's not gonna affect us that much, our generation, like Gen Z, Gen X,
or whatever. But third graders growing up to this?
That's what it's gonna affect. And that's what you have
to think about. But, I mean, who wouldn't wanna
be an anime character? (chuckles) If you do do this,
at the end of the day, I think that you just need to know
that this is not real. As much as you want it to be, it's not.
That has to push through everything else.
- (FBE) Does it make you feel like you're living in the future
to know that this is something that's becoming big right now?
- It's crazy. We're moving so fast. And there's just new things
coming out every single year, every single day, every second.
Like, so scary. What are we gonna be doing
in 10 years from now? Not even! Like, two years from now.
I bet it'll be completely different. Oh my gosh. I'm scared.
I don't like the future. (laughs) - (FBE) There are VTube groups
that are basically like girl groups. One of the most popular ones right now
is called Hololive. They get together as a group
and they do all kinds of videos. - All right, cool.
- Oh my gosh! They're literally in character and everything.
This is so funny.
- That's kinda-- that's interesting.
Character playing a character.
- (chuckles) They're literally just singing.
- (laughs) These are all the Hololive English--
some of them are the Hololive English, 'cause I see Gawr Gura, I see Watson.
- Oh my gosh! They're literally in character and everything.
- I think it adds a different element to the content.
It makes it more interesting. - (FBE) Okay, so even
with the popularity of Hololive, most VTube content
is still only Japanese. There is an entire community
of translators who work tirelessly for free to translate hundreds
of hours of VTuber content so that people all over the world
can enjoy it. - It's kinda weird.
Give it maybe a few more years, and you never know what could happen.
It'll probably be super westernized and stuff.
- You know what? See, I like this.
Turning yourself into a real-life anime,
who wouldn't want that? - (FBE) So, would you do this?
- I mean, hey, I would like to see myself as my own character.
Yeah, that would be pretty cool. See what I look like
if I had a body suit or VTuber-type thing.
- What would your VTuber look like? - (chuckles)
Yeah, now that's the thing. I don't know what I wanna look like.
I wanna look like something, but I don't know.
I mean, I wouldn't mind looking like an anime character,
but I feel like kinda like the first video,
where it was very close to looking like a human,
I feel like something like that and just similar to a human
to see how I look in virtual form, and, like, I could customize
my outfits virtually and all that. That alone is just fascinating to me.
- I would want to. It would be more like a game to me,
'cause, you know, I think I'm pretty genuine, pretty real.
I'm an open book. My family and friends know that.
I really just say whatever. I really don't care.
So, I feel like I'd be okay with this. It's all about your mindset,
but this is a lot of fun. But you could get cared away.
I think my avatar would look pretty much like me,
maybe just the little fixes that I would wanna do
on myself personally. If anything were to be creative
about my avatar, it would be its outfits.
I am a creative person with my outfits in general on a daily.
It would be the outfits that would be out of this world.
I'd have the biggest gowns or rock star boots or something,
like skull head or I don't even know. Just go wild.
- Not something I would really wanna do.
It would be cool to try out for a hot second,
but I personally like to just be myself
and not have a character to portray me.
I guess, just different interests. But it is fascinating.
- That's a big part of VTubers is not showing their face.
And they're really adamant about that, 'cause they have their own lore,
personality, all that kind of stuff that they put into the character.
So, they don't wanna ruin that with seeing behind it.
Obviously, we know it's fake. We know there's people behind it.
It's an anime character on top of someone speaking.
Obviously, it's not real and you know it's not.
Yeah, it's a character. Yeah, it's someone
that you really enjoy. They have their own personality,
and they wanna show that. They wanna show their personality.
Er, obviously, it's a little bit of both.
You mix and match. But all that goes into one
when watching VTubers, and that's the appeal of 'em.
- Okay, well I'm already half Filipino, half Japanese,
so I do have some cute little Japanese features to me.
I want somebody to make me-- see how they would think
my personality would match somebody, like match a VTube character,
because I feel like I wouldn't be good at making myself.
Like I make people do my Bitmojis and Animojis for me,
because I know if I make it myself, I'm gonna make myself
20 times prettier than I already am. (laughs)
So, I need to humble myself and I make other people do it. (laughs)
- Thanks for watching this episode of React.
- Let us know what you'd like us to react to next in the comments.
- If you liked this episode... - Be sure to hit the Like button
and subscribe. - Bye, guys!
- Hey, guys. It's Sierra, React producer.
If you wanna get to know us and our reactors a little bit better,
then you should follow us on social media, @FBE and @React.
Bye, guys!