Vtubers are Modern Fey
Perhaps it is too bold of me to reveal my degeneracy of occasionally indulging in YouTube Shorts of VTubers. VTuber, or Virtual YouTuber, is someone who has face tracking software that animates a character. It is like a really advanced Instagram filter, where instead of aging, reversing your gender or slapping a dog face onto your face, it turns you into an anime girl. To be more precise, these performers or their parent company, own the designs and so when they yap with chat, the character is animated. While a vast majority of the Vtubers are women, they are not alone. The most popular within the Dungeons and Dragons space is probably JoCat.
Ah, Good old 2d vs 3D argument
JoCat
There’s a running joke in anime communities over how a drawn woman is superior to that of flesh and blood. Of course, the issue with any joke based in irony is that some of the audience are idiots, aren’t in on the joke and instead think they’re among good company. Based off of earlier photoshop trends; any cover magazine had any blemish or imperfection scoured away. Glamour used to mean enchanting, now it just means a particular physique not wearing a lot of clothes. In the case of a “2D woman”, the parts that make for a human human are absent. Just like the Fey.
Alien Attitude
Terminally online seems to be a prerequisite of being a Vtuber which means that some have strange notions; oh sure, they know how to troubleshoot their model or any other fancy footwork, but having a relationship? Many Vtubers are very frank over their struggles to be a ‘normal’ human being. This seems like the Fey obsession over table manners, as if that were what makes up humanity, entirely missing the mark.
With the attention economy being what fuels influencers, it is no wonder that the topics Vtubers cover are strange, a perhaps too personal. I find this to be a great parallel with Fey, as they gain sustenance from concepts. Hags feed on despair, Fey-coded Spanners require juicy gossip and Point Hat’s Chest Weasels feed on frustration. Asking for your name or other immaterial, personal accents does mirror the Vtuber’s praise for the gifts of subscriptions or donations.
Whimsical and Terrifying
One of my favourite Horror Comedies comes from the imagination of a child. House (1977) is a Japanese film where the director had the writer ask for plot points from a kid. The Director of the film wanted a child’s perspective because an adult makes logical conclusions while a child has no issues with ridiculous leaps of logic, unexplained consequences and irrational fears. Fey across the world have all of these characteristics, whether that they’re afraid of phrases while they themselves possess potent powers.
To say the least, House goes hard; making for frights or laughs at any turn. A great many topics that Vtubers talk to each other about make them seem to be in their own personal horrific comedy. That could be because Vtubers skew young but I think it’s because of the terminally online nature. There are plenty of images I can’t unsee when I had my own forays into the ‘comedy’ of being shown something horrific. Hell, one of the frequent terms they use is ‘farm’ as when the audience begin donating because of the on-screen antics; they audience are being easily manipulated, like taking cattle to slaughter for consumption.
Lastly, if we’re going off of pure aesthetics, Vtubers use many Fey motifs. The mixing of a human with some kind of animal, or other mythical creatures from around the world. Cats are rightly popular, but there are a whole wide range of dog, rabbit, raccoon, whale and so many more animals from off of the top of my noggin. If you want to see what glamour is used to engage the audience, then don’t click away the next time YouTube recommends you some anime girl.
