October 03, 2020
The Vanishings Have Begun
CoronaChan, was a You-Tube channel that aggregate news related to the current pandemic. Its mirror still exists on Bitchute.
Perhaps Ben referred to Taiwan as, you know, a country.
That's what happened two two Hololive V-tubers, Kiryu Coco and Akai Haato, who, in the course of a joint You-Tube livestream looked up their analytics online (a very common thing for V-Tubers and YouTubers to do), discussed where their viewers were, and, I gather thanked the residents of each country. A lot of their viewers are in Taiwan, and they mentioned and....
For those "inappropriate remarks", they have been suspended, by Hololive's parent company, Cover Corporation for at least three weeks.
There is coverage of this here, here, here, here and here...though it's anyone's guess how long those links will go somewhere.
The whole affair came as something of a shock, particularly since these are not small talents, Kiryu Coco is much bigger than one would think as as she's frequently the top super-chat earner on You-Tube in any given month. This made such waves that even American V-Tubers who avoid politics completely have taken a moment to mention it...and say "Taiwan".
It's telling that according to the ANN and Niche Gamer articles linked above that China's One China Policy was specifically mentioned in the Simplified Chinese version.
There has been a bit of backlash particularly about that latter discrepancy.
Here is the English language press release that was released on September 27th.
Here is another press release from the 30th of last month.
It's rare that a company issues press releases that so effectively convey the the truth of what led to a corporate screw up. In this case the press releases show that HoloLive/CoverCorp is a crap company that doesn't stand by its employees, but will pretend to do so to pay the Danegeld to thugs.
The WHOLE POINT of V-Tubing is anonymity.
The fact that certain individuals in the 50 cent army were threatening V-Tubers because they spoke truth is irrelevant, since they're anonymous, and they're in Japan, where hypothetical Anti-Taiwan mobs can't get to them. Also You-Tube analytics like the V-Tubers were discussing seems to hardly be privileged info since it is specifically acknowledged that YouTube sells it to the four winds to sell adds. No. This is just groveling before China, much like Hollywood did to the Nazis in the lead up to WW2 when they refrained from making any movies that might threaten what was then the lucrative German market.
If I were a V-Tuber, I'd rather lick doorknobs in Wuhan than work for Hololive now. Given that Hololive takes a cut of every thing from their ad revenue and super chats sent I'm even disinclined to even watch their talent.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
04:04 PM
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Post contains 468 words, total size 5 kb.
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I'm OK. Site should be back up, now. It was a simple matter of mis-reading a bill. I thought it was due January 10th, not October 1st. It means a lot that someone noticed, though...hopefully I'll get back to posting about models or World of Warships again, soon.
And someday, I'll detail my epic 5 year adventure.
And someday, I'll detail my epic 5 year adventure.
Posted by: Ben at Sat Oct 3 19:37:55 2020 (9Wcjc)
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So for some reason this site seems to have gone into night mode or something, with black on black text.... Hopefully that's just a glitch on my end....
Posted by: Mauser at Sun Oct 4 03:27:36 2020 (Ix1l6)
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It's black text on a black background for me as well...
Posted by: Siergen at Sun Oct 4 08:53:02 2020 (jIT9h)
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Well, I was playing around with the settings and tried to switch to a dark background with white text, but for some reason the white text remained black. Now the text on the Styles dashboard is invisible and I'm fumbling around in the dark trying to fix it.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sun Oct 4 14:29:14 2020 (5iiQK)
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Hololive is an idol production company, Japanese-style; indeed they initially intended to be a singing-type of idol thing, just on Youtube, and the whole vtuber streaming kind of happened organically. The downside is, of course, that it also imported a bunch of the pathologies of that market to a new platform.
The real trick there is that their performers basically start off with a huge leg up. The technical challenge of setting up a cute little avatar image and getting the streaming going is not that large. But building an audience is tough - most people stream to almost nobody, and it takes a lot of work and luck to go from a dozen people to a thousand.
The Hololive folks, now that they've got that critical mass, basically walk into the job already successful there. They launched their EN side with five streamers all with thousands of people watching, just because the company could afford to spread a little hype around the market - because they've got their already-popular stuff feeding into it, it's like being a brand new cover band getting picked to tour with and open for an established band that can pack the stadium every night. Of course they still have to be engaging enough to keep people watching, but there are plenty of people who have that trait but not the interest needed to get a career off the ground.
The downside is that yeah, the idol industry is not pretty; it's about sucking a bunch of money out of the wallets of lonely young men, and part of that is not pissing off the lonely young men. In Japan this usually manifests in "no boys" - no boyfriends, no partners, definitely no getting married, to keep up the fantasy that you're at least theoretically available (even if the guys have no chance, a lot of them just won't deal with the reality of "my idol is interested in a man who is not me!")
If you take the Japanese money, you've got to deal with that kind of pathology; if you take the Chinese money, well, you have the Chinese equivalent.
In either case, the company reaction is pretty much par for the course - even though as observers we can nod and say "man, the idol industry sucks," that's how it is. As far as the production company is concerned, the idols are there to do a job and get paid, and they're disposable if they cause the company trouble; how much more so for a vtuber, when they're just anonymous actresses for an identity that the company manufactured?
The real trick there is that their performers basically start off with a huge leg up. The technical challenge of setting up a cute little avatar image and getting the streaming going is not that large. But building an audience is tough - most people stream to almost nobody, and it takes a lot of work and luck to go from a dozen people to a thousand.
The Hololive folks, now that they've got that critical mass, basically walk into the job already successful there. They launched their EN side with five streamers all with thousands of people watching, just because the company could afford to spread a little hype around the market - because they've got their already-popular stuff feeding into it, it's like being a brand new cover band getting picked to tour with and open for an established band that can pack the stadium every night. Of course they still have to be engaging enough to keep people watching, but there are plenty of people who have that trait but not the interest needed to get a career off the ground.
The downside is that yeah, the idol industry is not pretty; it's about sucking a bunch of money out of the wallets of lonely young men, and part of that is not pissing off the lonely young men. In Japan this usually manifests in "no boys" - no boyfriends, no partners, definitely no getting married, to keep up the fantasy that you're at least theoretically available (even if the guys have no chance, a lot of them just won't deal with the reality of "my idol is interested in a man who is not me!")
If you take the Japanese money, you've got to deal with that kind of pathology; if you take the Chinese money, well, you have the Chinese equivalent.
In either case, the company reaction is pretty much par for the course - even though as observers we can nod and say "man, the idol industry sucks," that's how it is. As far as the production company is concerned, the idols are there to do a job and get paid, and they're disposable if they cause the company trouble; how much more so for a vtuber, when they're just anonymous actresses for an identity that the company manufactured?
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at Sun Oct 4 16:58:12 2020 (v29Tn)
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Brickmuppet, do you know HTML at all? If so, you can hit F12 and use the browser tools to disable the black background so you can read the control panel. You might have to do it more than once--so that I could read the text here I had to turn off hte background-color on both the html body tag, and the div with the "main" id.
Posted by: Rick C at Sun Oct 4 17:13:24 2020 (eqaFC)
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An idol company.
So the "doesn't have their employees back" thing doesn't aply, since in this country they'd be a 13th amendment violation.
Interestingly, several of their V-tubers got their audiences on their own and (as I understand it) Hololive walked in and offered them marketing deals.
Now Hololive is doing auditions for V-Tubers whose ascendance they can micro-manage. I've heard (from a few English language V-Tubers) that even the ones who built their own following have, in the last few days. been shocked to learn that Hololive owns the characters now, and they can be replaced. ( I have no confirmation from that other than hearsay, but learning that Hololive is an Idol company means that they are the Weyland-Yutani of meat markets).....and yeah...looking it up, If I'd known ANYTHING about the Idol scene I'd have known what hololive was. I thought they were a new company looking to get in on the V-Tuber thing.
Still no luck on the Blog obviously. In fact, it is supposed to be back to its old settings now.
Hololive is an idol production companyOh.
An idol company.
So the "doesn't have their employees back" thing doesn't aply, since in this country they'd be a 13th amendment violation.
Interestingly, several of their V-tubers got their audiences on their own and (as I understand it) Hololive walked in and offered them marketing deals.
Now Hololive is doing auditions for V-Tubers whose ascendance they can micro-manage. I've heard (from a few English language V-Tubers) that even the ones who built their own following have, in the last few days. been shocked to learn that Hololive owns the characters now, and they can be replaced. ( I have no confirmation from that other than hearsay, but learning that Hololive is an Idol company means that they are the Weyland-Yutani of meat markets).....and yeah...looking it up, If I'd known ANYTHING about the Idol scene I'd have known what hololive was. I thought they were a new company looking to get in on the V-Tuber thing.
Still no luck on the Blog obviously. In fact, it is supposed to be back to its old settings now.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sun Oct 4 17:16:03 2020 (5iiQK)
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Huh. So I can just color my text using the widget at the top of the comment field.
Also, if you highlight the text, it's readable.
Also, if you highlight the text, it's readable.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sun Oct 4 17:17:49 2020 (5iiQK)
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The only thing I want to know is if Kizuna Ai is owned by Hololive.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Sun Oct 4 18:46:26 2020 (LZ7Bg)
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sun Oct 4 21:30:37 2020 (5iiQK)
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Time to have some kind of Taiwan film festival!
Did you guys see the story about the new CCP Chinese ethics and law textbook, where they include the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery... where Jesus waits until the Pharisees have gone away, and then HE stones the woman to death?
Seriously, I think it's clear who the baddies are.
Did you guys see the story about the new CCP Chinese ethics and law textbook, where they include the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery... where Jesus waits until the Pharisees have gone away, and then HE stones the woman to death?
Seriously, I think it's clear who the baddies are.
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Mon Oct 5 08:43:25 2020 (sF8WE)
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While Cover Corp (Hololive) is indeed an idol company, they take a percentage (albeit a large one) rather than taking the whole amount and paying a salary. And the talents are largely individual; from what I've seen (Korone, Coco, now Gawr Gura) many of the girls could walk away, set up an alternate new character, and have 50,000 followers on day one.
I hope that what went on behind the scenes is more along the lines of "you did nothing wrong, but we have to pretend to punish you because these Chinese assholes are insane".
I hope that what went on behind the scenes is more along the lines of "you did nothing wrong, but we have to pretend to punish you because these Chinese assholes are insane".
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tue Oct 6 10:25:05 2020 (PiXy!)
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OK. That's better than I'd feared. It also makes sense given how the first lot of V-tubers were recruited (Most, if not all were already established.)
While Cover Corp (Hololive) is indeed an idol company, they take a percentage (albeit a large one) rather than taking the whole amount and paying a salary.
OK. That's better than I'd feared. It also makes sense given how the first lot of V-tubers were recruited (Most, if not all were already established.)
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Tue Oct 6 10:51:03 2020 (5iiQK)
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I'll admit that I find Coco quite funny and I've watched quite a bit of Fubuki playing various games (and they just announced a Fubuki nendo, so there's a buy!) Haven't quite fallen all the way in the hole, though, there's a bunch of them I can't recognize and a few I only know names for but can't really get into watching.
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at Tue Oct 6 14:43:27 2020 (v29Tn)
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Remember the good old days, when the internet was free, and it really did interpret censorship as damage, and route around it?
Posted by: Ubu at Thu Oct 8 00:35:44 2020 (UlsdO)
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