The Decision to Cancel the VTubing Project
...now is not the time, but the desire is still there
I wasn’t sure whether or not I wanted to write this. My VTubing idea has been kept pretty close to the chest for several months, but it’s something I was wanting to explore and was pretty passionate about. I’ll get into that after a bit of background on how I found myself so invested in the fairly new and unique art form.
To start, I have been aware of VTubers for 3-4 years. However, I never really got invested into that world until earlier this year. I knew of some of the bigger VTubing stars, and I was always fascinated by the tech and how everything worked. However, I just saw it as something that wasn’t really for me and was geared towards a much younger audience. Yet, something happened that made me pay more attention to it and the larger community surrounding it.
That something was all the drama surrounding the release of Hogwart’s Legacy and the harassment towards streamers that ensued. A few prominent VTubers caught a lot of shit from the weirdos on Twitter, which is something I’ve seen from video games, comic books, and just about everything in-between. Especially, in regards to “nerd” IPs.
What was different, however, was that I saw other VTubers quickly coming to the defense of their colleagues and friends. I also saw the most harassed take a day off but come back strong and stand their ground against these vile pieces of shit. So much so, I found it inspirational, as I have watched entire industries crumble over the past few years. Most notably, mainstream comics… and now Hollywood.
Most of these streamers are young women, and I was impressed by their resolve and loyalty to one another. Many of them expressed their points on the harassment campaigns quite eloquently and with a maturity that surprised me. I could see that many had watched as this happened in other creative spaces before them and that they had learned some valuable lessons. In a way, they proved to be un-cancellable as they stood together, pushed back against the bullies, and doubled down on what they were doing. Multiple VTubers who had no interest in Hogwart’s Legacy then played it and streamed it just to make the point that they wouldn’t be bullied by the weirdos and that they would stand by their contemporaries.
As this was happening, I was already toying with the idea of using a VTubing concept. Essentially, in an effort to help sales of my Barbarians of the Storm books and to reach a larger audience, I wanted to start streaming as Fenrik, my books’ main character. I also thought of doing it as Killer Koala, but I didn’t want to have to be forced to use a Brooklyn sounding accent for the entirety of my VTubing streaming career. I’m also not great at a Brooklyn accent.
The concept had a lot of facets to it. I wanted to do regular talking (zatsu) streams, gaming streams (where Fenrik smashes shit when he can’t advance through tough games like Dark Souls), and also something similar to a Space Ghost Coast to Coast show where I would interview real people in the pulp fiction and Iron Age spaces, as well as (hopefully) occasional VTubers/streamers with similar interests. There was also the idea of having a game show similar to Press Your Luck with goblin animations in the place of the “whammys”. To put it bluntly, the concept was incredibly ambitious, was going to cost a lot of money, and was going to require a lot of my time.
Additionally, I didn’t want to do any of this in an anime style, which is most common in the VTubing sphere. Instead, I wanted it to have a ‘70s/’80s Hanna-Barbera look and vibe. Or something similar to Thundarr the Barbarian. While this is an art style I think that I could have developed and done on my own, I knew that the job would require more work than I could feasibly do myself. Finding the right artist(s) would be difficult, and then I’d have to find someone that could understand how VTubing tech worked and how to rig everything or at least set it up for a rigger.
I also knew that this wasn’t a style that the vast majority of VTuber artists would want to work in, and that it wouldn’t necessarily be a popular choice for that realm exclusively. However, my idea was to merge two things I loved into something new. A sort of western evolution of the concept, which is bound to happen anyway. I saw VTubing tech as a way to create things beyond what it is typically used for today. A part of me also hoped that this piqued a new western audience’s interest in the VTubing art form, yes art form, in a way that would ease them into that broader space.
The biggest problem I have is time and resources. It would be damn near impossible for me to pull this off while also trying to write more books and balance that out with an incredibly hectic real job, which I do really enjoy despite its faults. Additionally, life threw some curveballs at me a few months ago and finances got much tighter, even after a significant raise at the real job. So, for me to keep pushing forward with this was going to stretch my time and creativity thin. It would also probably drive me more mad than I have been lately.
Beyond that, as I have spent more time in VTubing spaces and learned the odd rules of the community, I’ve found some of it to be a turn off. A lot of it comes from the Japanese side of the VTubing world, which itself comes from Japanese idol culture. Additionally, the fans tend to be so invested in their idols that its worrisome and bizarre. I can understand why most of these women embrace the anonymity of VTubing when they are so obsessed over by a certain segment of the broader fanbase. Granted, this isn’t everyone but it is a rather large portion. For me, I don’t see these women as romantic/sexual objects, I see them more as little sisters and friends with common interests that just happen to stream as an anime avatar.
The more unhinged, obsessive fans also hate men in the space, even though they are men themselves. They want to idolize and love these cartoon women as if they are their wives. Ultimately, such obsessions prevent them from meeting a real woman that could become their wife, but they’re most likely too weird to succeed at that anyway. So, they live vicariously through some sort of parasocial relationship. I hate that word, by the way, as it is used so much in the VTubing space, but it best sums up the situation, I guess. It also isn’t a VTubing phenomenon, as it has existed in idol and celebrity obsessed culture forever.
I find the rules of the industry and the culture around it to be quite off-putting. As an artist of multiple mediums, I hate the fact that VTubers under big companies don’t actually own the rights to their characters and identity. Also, these companies just operate in a way that seems predatory. Contracts tend to be very lopsided and favor the company only. I’m not saying all are run this way, but most are. One VTuber I especially liked a lot was forced to “graduate” about a month after I discovered her. It was sad, off-putting as hell to me as a fan, and I genuinely worried about her well-being, knowing that she did have her own mental health issues leading up to her graduation (forced retirement/termination). Granted, she did return, reinvented herself, and she seems to be doing well, growing quickly, and appears to be infinitely happier as an independent that now owns her own IP and controls the trajectory and creative output of her character.
Ultimately, I love the VTubing scene and those I have genuinely connected with in the space, be they actual VTubers or fans. However, there is this dark corpo cloud over the industry that I am not a fan of. However, I try to be cognizant of the corpos that do employ better practices for their talent. I also hope that they inspire new companies coming into the space, at least in the western world. The Japanese corpos will probably remain as they are.
I still want to eventually work on creating a Barbarians of the Storm world using VTubing tech, but I think it should be done completely independently. I’m also aware that doing it in my own way, which will contradict the norm, will create problems. I also don’t care, as I don’t fear the weirdest segments of the fans. The process of doing what I would like to do, however, is a hell of a mountain to climb. But I have books to keep writing and I am writing some of the best shit I ever have. I can’t pull my iron out of that fire just yet, and the real job is another beast to tangle with every damn day.
Looking ahead at the bigger picture of what I am trying to do with Talking Pulp Press and Fenrik/Barbarians of the Storm, I just want to keep expanding into new areas. It’s going to take time and with such large ambitions, I need to be realistic. Sure, I can make certain sacrifices, but that’s becoming infinitely harder to do when the cost of living has essentially doubled and I have to have a real job. I hope, that one day, I have more time, resources, and freedom to make these bigger things happen.
I guess, we shall see.
…because I also want to do manga/comics and video games as well.