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[Iz 🌟]

Vtubers
Internet streamers who use a cartoon avatar, normally anime-styled instead of a webcam, that uses technology to track their emotions. Helps keep their personal lives and image separate from their streaming career and adds a lot of potential for fans of anime aesthetics.

also seems to really aid in their entertainment potential IMO as they can react in ways that on live feeds would look ridiculous, and are more easily able to be variety streamers as while you might go to most streamers because they're good at a certain game, there's an image consistency in vtubers. And for the most part, in part because lots of them are with professional agencies and in part because of the aesthetics, there's far less of the old 'wild west' drama that seems to emerge with internet streamers a lot of the time and the vast majority of vtubers that I can think of are lovely people who offer a fun place to chill with them whenever you want to catch them live. Potential for parasociality but no more than any other streamer or celebrity from most that I've seen, they interact a lot with their communities, promote fanart and seem to really enjoy their fanbases.

(also the fact that it offers an important way for women to have harrassment-dulled streaming careers is not going unnoticed, that may well be a big part of their communities being wholesome mostly, and also the rather inescapable conclusion that women are funnier than men)

They tend to do a few different types of content, depending on who it is:
> gaming streams
> music + karaoke
> language learning streams
> talking streams for fans
> drawing streams
> innovative streams that might include audiovisual projects or unusual content
> ASMR
> viral videos

Many are Japanese but lots more are coming out in English as it becomes more of a noticeable thing outside of Japan.

Popular Vtubers
Divided by agency. Many with the same agency often do collaborations with each other, and even occasionally outside the agency.

Hololive
The big agency. Blew up last year. Currently has 46 female vtubers and 9 male vtubers representing English (EN), Japanese (JP) and Indonesian (ID).

Gawr Gura (EN): The biggest vtuber currently. Shark character with great comedic sense, plays popular western games and has been known to sing everything from Sabaton to Country Roads at karaoke, has amassed a fanbase far beyond the rest of Hololive.
Usada Pekora (JP): Probably the biggest current Japanese vtuber, pulling in great metrics on all fronts - well known for setting chaotic Minecraft traps and being a comedian who transcends language.
Inugami Korone (JP): Known in the West for playing many old and popular retro games, a big favourite with veteran gamers for her adorable speech tics and cheery attitude.
Mori Calliope (EN): contact iz for more info she is perfect, only streamer I've ever subscribed to because I love her stuff that much
Ninomae Ina'nis (EN): excellent artist and comfy vibes streamer
Takanashi Kiara (EN/AT): Austrian native Vtuber and current representative of EU vtubers, fluent in three languages and potentially the first cartoon character to enter Eurovision
Watson Amelia (EN): dorky variety game streamer with a more Western sense of humour and style than most.

Nijisanji
Comparable to size in Hololive in Japan, much smaller on Western platforms, known for having far more members. I honestly don't know anything about any of their Japanese members.

Elira Pendora (EN): Pretty normal girl but with a great meme sense at utilising her dragon* character (*dragon deez nuts)
Finana Ryugu (EN): The character in the video below. Great at pretending to look and sound pure.
Pomu Rainpuff (EN): Pomu.

Vshojo
A mostly Twitch based agency that is only English-based. It's small but is probably the most well-known 'western' agency.

Nyanners (EN): veteran streamer of 10 years who is very skilled at making short clips go viral
Zentreya (EN): dragon girl who only talks in text-to-speech

Indies or with smaller companies

Milky Queen (EN/JP): very British, friend of Mori Calliope