In the case of women, there is also the desire to avoid gender violence that manifests itself in an increasingly recurrent way in the online modality. “I feel like it has allowed a lot of us, especially women, to try content creation without feeling insecure,” says VTuber Suzuki Zuriko. “I don’t have to worry about people making fun of my real body or making sexist comments,” she reported. BBC .
Unlike the few musical bands, the VTubers have opened new possibilities for the industry. Not only with the announcement of products, almost always of a technological nature such as video games, but also for the generation of avatars. There are those who design their own, but many are entrusted to animators who program them with tracking software to imitate face and body movements. A kind of motion capture without the need for special suits with capture points.
Let’s also not forget the marketing and public relations agencies specializing in these virtual idols of the 21st century. Such is the case of Nijisanji and Project Starscape, with strategies that presumably hide the key to launching the next great virtual benchmark on the web.
Future of the VStar
Talking about the future in a nascent and changing industry is always difficult, but the trends indicate that the VStars will continue to rise until they spread throughout the world. It is, after all, one more trend within social networks as filters, dances and challenges have been at the time. How far will it reach within the internet? That is harder to predict.
More interesting is to talk about the possibilities within other industries. There are more and more game shows using virtual presenters, such as the Japanese Chiko’s Challenge or the Spanish Mapi. In both cases, with clearly caricatured characters.
There are those who believe that it will not be long before similar trends reach the cinema. Not with fantasy characters like Gollum (The Lord of the rings) or Neytiri (Avatar), but with realistic virtual incarnations. There is talk of film legends that could be recreated digitally, as would be the case of James Dean for the film Finding Jack, but for this reason we should not rule out the creation of completely virtual stars. Yes like S1m0ne. We already said it at the beginning, reality always ends up surpassing fiction.
Virtual stars have ceased to be a science fiction dream to become one more element of the world in which we live. What will follow next? The only certainty is that we live in times where everything can be possible.