文化与趋势报告：创作者的虚拟进化

CULTURE& TRENDSREPORT VIRTUAL CREATORS The virtual evolutionof the creator THE CREATORLANDSCAPE ISEVOLVINGHi I’m Cat, I am a VTuber! The launch of YouTube in 2005 broughtwith it the introduction of an entirelynew type of creative professional:the Creator. Uninhibited by industrygatekeepers, creators were able to bringtheir visions directly to broad audienceswithout needing to shape their contentto fit within any established normsor brand guidelines. That freedomafforded them something invaluablethat still eludes mainstream mediatoday:authenticity.1, 2Always evolving,YouTube is today being revolutionizedby a new type of digital-born personalitynative to our virtual world. Enter: Virtual creators and artists.Theseanimated digital avatars demonstratethat even after twenty years, YouTubecreators are still surprising, delighting,and challenging us to broaden thecircumference of our appreciation forself-expression and creativity. VIRTUAL INFLUENCEIS HERE Our first mention of virtual creators andartists came in our 2020 Culture andTrends Report as we touched on Vtubersas an emerging phenomenon, but it’sclear they are having a breakthroughmoment. That breakthrough can bemeasured in terms ofdirect,broad, andmainstreaminfluence. In themainstream, virtual singerHatsune Miku appeared “IRL” at theCoachella Music Festival, virtually atthe Fortnite Festival and was featuredin a McDonalds marketing campaign(exclusive to Japan). Five years ago, it would’ve been easyto dismiss virtual creators and artistsas a fad. Today, they are undeniablysignificant players driving culturein a rapidly evolving online creativelandscape. Directly, last year a sample of just 300Virtual Creators on YouTube earnedover 15 billion views across videos, livestreams, and Shorts, with one billion ofthose views coming from the U.S. alone.3 Broadly, last summer they droveviewership of gaming content, pushingGrand Theft Auto into the #1 spot formost-watched game on live streams forthe month of June.4 ANNUAL VIEWSOF VIDEOSRELATED TOVTUBERS5 CURRENT VIRTUALCREATOR LANDSCAPE At first glance, the Virtual Creator community may seem homogenous. But thelandscape of Virtual Creators - specifically what kinds of Virtual Creators there are -is a diverse one. We will explore four different types of Virtual Creators. DEFINING VIRTUALCREATORSDefining Characteristics A Virtual Creator is aconstructed personarepresented by a digitalavatar - usually (but notalways) created andperformed by a real-live human being whobehaves just like anactual Creator. CGI Avatar RepresentationVirtual Creator or artist is anonline persona representedby a CGI avatar. Not RepresentativeThe avatar is not a directrepresentation of theperformer. Audience UnderstandingIts audience must knowinglyinteract with the persona asa Virtual Persona and not asthe performer. Platform-Native ContentThe creator or artist mustcreate in formats endemicto their platforms. Production Virtual Creators and artistsare brought to life through avariety of technical means. Video Game SoftwareLive Motion CaptureOther CGI ToolsHolographic ProjectionArtificial Intelligence Aesthetics & Style Anime-InspiredCharacter designs forVtubers inherit anime andmanga aesthetics. The Virtual Creator’s avatar isn’t meantto resemble the performer but embodiesa distinct persona. A shared illusioninvites both creator and audience totreat it as independent from its humancounterpart—essentially, an animatedcharacter existing in the real world,creating platform-native content. Video GameGaming virtual creatorsinherit the aesthetics of thevideo game the characteris based in. Digital RealismVirtual humans attempt tomore fully and realisticallyreplicate the human bodyand face. VTUBER When we say “VTuber,” we refer to adistinct type of on-screen persona, avirtual character living in the real world.An invention of Japanese online culture,VTubers almost monolithically resembleanime characters both in the way thatthey look and how they interact with theworld around them. Some VTubers are developed byagencies like hololive in Japan, whichtreat them as intellectual propertyfor branding. Smaller agencies oftenoperate like independent creators, usingthe VTuber persona to attract views andgenerate ad revenue. Also worth mentioning are the AIcreators, likeNeuro-Sama, a VTuberwith nearly five hundred thousandsubscribers, whose presence is entirelyrun by a LLM. 16/20 Channels with the GreatestSuperchat Revenue of all timebelong to Vtubers (as of Feb 2025). GAMING VIRTUALCREATORS Video games that offer flexibility incharacter creation and player activityhave created an easy way for creatorsto develop virtual personae. Of these,Roblox and VRChat have emerged asincreasingly popular platforms fromwhich game-based virtual creators canemerge. Many creators have YouTube channelshelmed by their Roblox avatars, withperformances carried out in-world.But they also often participate in real-world content trends — such as dance