I see people talking about what as far as I can tell are cartoons performing shows and I’m quite lost. Looking stuff up there’s all this jargon that makes it impenetrable. From what I can tell there are like digital puppets that various people perform under? But sometimes the performers “graduate”? (taken behind the shed and shot?) and then sometimes the puppet is gone but then this blue haired thing persists? are they totally different things?
How do you see a performance by a digital puppet? is it all just on screen?
confused boomer noises
So vtubers are just people playing games/reacting to stuff/talking to paying chat customers under a stage persona and costume that they may not own like any other actor. But the digital instrument is more like a specific synth you might license.
With the synth who owns the music? and if anyone can license it then who is putting on the concerts?
Where does graduation come into this?
Graduation is just the word vtubers use for when they retire as a character
Oooh it sounds so sinister haha
It’s copied from the idol industry. They use it to avoid saying “yeah the performer quit the job” and to create a culture of not asking questions about why the performers quit.
“gawr gura was sent to live on a farm upstate”
“can i visit her?”
“no”
Yes, pretty much. Vtubers stream like other streamers but show their models instead of their own faces, and lots of them do karaoke streams or even original songs, which leads into the concerts. Graduation is retirement either from the company that owns their model or from streaming entirely. In the former case, they may pop back up later with a different model either streaming independently or with a different agency.
For an example of Miku’s licensing, probably the most famous Miku song is “World is Mine” which was written by a composer named ryo and performed by his band Supercell. I’m not sure exactly what deal was struck between their label, Sony Music, and Crypton Future Media, the makers of the Vocaloid software Miku is the mascot and most popular voice of to make the concerts. Anyone is allowed to use the Miku character for noncommercial purposes with attribution, her image is CC BY-NC.