• bizarroland@lemmy.worldEnglish
      18·
      17 days ago

      My first exposure to VTubers was the tool bear, who would tell you things about cheap tools.

      I was always curious because why did this guy need to use a digital bear skin to talk about tools? And then he quit using the V-Tuber skin and he’s just a regular guy, so it doesn’t make any sense to me.

  • I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world
    121·
    17 days ago

    Vtubers have always made me uncomfortable in a way I can’t fully describe. Fans talk about them as if the vtuber characters are real, and they all seem to lust after them in a very unhealthy way.

    • DaGeek247@fedia.io
      5·
      17 days ago

      I expect it’s the same way people treat regular streamers, they’re just a bit less careful about how they talk about their favorite vtuber in public than they way would a regular streamer.

    • Harvey656@lemmy.worldM
      73·
      17 days ago

      Vtuber characters

      They are people, not characters. I cannot fathom how this dissonance began, but its so odd.

      Edit: after about 45 minutes of thought, I think this person’s only knowledge of vtubers comes from hololive. Hololive really is much of the time characters, I think that’s why Gura was so big, because she really was genuinely a goober. But I digress. I would look at some indies like Ironmouse, Crelly, or someone on the smaller view count that aligns with your personal interests.

      Actually dont watch crelly. Your soul wont survive.

    • Honytawk@discuss.tchncs.de
      41·
      17 days ago

      I mean, the people controlling those characters are real. You can interact with them and are genuine people.

      You can compare it to characters in a tv show. People talk about Water White as if they are real. And the actor playing that character is real.

      The lust has more to do with the weebs lusting after anything that looks anime. But the majority of vtubers aren’t even anime girls. For the vtuber it is also more to do with privacy and not having to look presentable every time they want to stream.

    • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
      1·
      15 days ago

      When I’m watching something I don’t need to a head cam blocking the screen.

      This feels like an even bigger fuck you to me where they just put a picture up to block the screen.

  • Grail@multiverse.soulism.netEnglish
    51·
    17 days ago

    The word tulpa has been removed from its original cultural context in a way many people aren’t okay with. So the plural community now calls them parogens.

    I’m friends with someone else’s parogen

      • Grail@multiverse.soulism.netEnglish
        4·
        17 days ago

        It means intentionally created. In the context of plurality, it makes perfect sense, because it distinguishes parogens from traumagenic, walk-in, and other kinds of system members.

        • bizarroland@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          16 days ago

          I work in tech, and one of the things that we learn early on is to not use tech jargon around people who are not also in the tech field because it can alienate them and make them feel stupid.

          So while you may have a fully fluent and valid mental construct of parogens and all of the assorted lore attached to that, talking about them as if it were common knowledge to people who have not been exposed to the same information is at best off-putting.

          • hypnicjerk@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            16 days ago

            tbf half the point of these communities is to be sheltered and insular. being told off by the wider population only drives people deeper within them.

          • SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
            2·
            16 days ago

            Yeah, this is true. But I feel like tech is esoteric, whereas metal health and psychology aren’t. Plus the stigmas are different.

          • Grail@multiverse.soulism.netEnglish
            1·
            16 days ago

            Any word we come up with for parogenenis is gonna confuse normies, because the act itself is fundamentally alien to most people’s experiences. The only way to explain it is to start with the science.

  • Sunsofold@lemmings.world
    68·
    17 days ago

    Sort of, but dumber. At least a tulpa is a display of a quirk of the human mind that it can create an imaginary friend that feels like a different person, and isn’t done for the titillation of strangers. Vtubers are just the laziest automation of a ventriloquist act.

    They don’t learn the subtle art of throwing their voice and looking like they’re paying attention, practicing a skill like a magician. They don’t even engage sincerely with an esoteric religious tradition like tulpamancers. They just run a software to control the digital dummy and do the exact same thing every other streamer does. Give it a few more years and they won’t be anime girls, it’ll all be AI Pokimane bodies with AI modulated voice changers played by the 50 dudes who sold their souls, their cars, and their neighborhood children to get ahold of the only 100 consumer graphics cards to leak out of the Nvidia pipeline.

      • Sunsofold@lemmings.world
        48·
        17 days ago

        At least a fursuit is something someone put real time, energy, and talent into bringing to existence. I have no respect for someone who just runs a piece of software someone else made to change how they look. It’s Instagram filters but dumber.