So if you’re reading this, odds are you have discovered the world of VTubers. Maybe you’re already deep down the rabbit hole of VTubers or you may have only just discovered your first VTuber. Here we hope to provide a bit of an introduction to VTubers to those who have only just discovered them. If you’re already down the rabbit hole, we hope you might learn something about VTubers you didn’t know before.
So What are VTubers?
VTubers are online content creators similar to live streamers who use animated digital avatars with the use of motion-capture software.
The term VTuber is a portmanteau of the term “Virtual Youtuber” popularized by Kizuna AI. The term however is not limited to content creators on Youtube; the term can also refer to creators on other popular streaming platforms such as Twitch, Niconico and Billibilli.
As mentioned above, what distinguishes VTubers from other streamers or content creators is the use of a digital avatar rather than physically appearing in their content. This avatar can range from a simple set of PNG images in the corner of the screen to 2D or even 3D models that are capable of displaying facial expressions and simple gestures with the use of motion-capture technology.
Apart from the use of an avatar, VTubers are pretty similar to live streamers. They develop a lot of content such as streaming video games and drawing artwork. Singing is also a common activity with many holding karaoke streams as well as releasing covers to popular songs or even producing their own original music. VTubers that focus on music related content tend to brand themselves as VSingers (virtual singers) rather than VTubers.
A Brief History
Credit for the first ever VTuber is generally given to vlogger Ami Yamato who began uploading videos to the Internet with a virtual avatar beginning in 2011. VTubers, as they would later be called, remained rather obscure with only an estimated 2,000 VTubers existing for the next few years.
It was not until the debut of Kizuna AI in 2016 that VTubers began to achieve breakout popularity, Kizuna AI herself attaining over two million subscribers in less than a year. The rapidly growing popularity of Kizuna AI sparked the creation of the first talent agencies specializing in VTubers starting with the establishment first of Nijisanji and later Hololive Productions in Japan in 2018.
Japanese-speakers were the primary audience up to this point, but over the next few years their viewership began to expand to other parts of Asia. By 2020, Chinese-, Korean-, Indonesian- and English-speakers had joined audiences with the creation of branch offices by talent agencies and independent native-speaking VTubers.
Between 2018 and 2021, the number of VTubers more than doubled from an estimated 6,000 to 16,000 talents worldwide. The number of VTubers has only gone up since then and is expected to keep growing over the next few years. Today, Japanese-speakers are still the dominant audience for VTubers, but with more VTubers across the globe, particularly North America, their viewers are more and more from around the globe as well.
Conclusion
VTubers are a new iteration of online content creators using avatars that began in Japan and has slowly been slowly expanding to audiences around the world. Today there are tens of thousands of VTubers that create all kinds of content from streaming games to releasing their own music.