The Virtual Girls OBSESSION.

I always felt like Vtubers just didn’t want to show there face but wanted to be able to show expressions and project themself through a virtual avatar. Vtubers aren’t always for mature needs but sometimes they’re just trying to have fun communicating to other people.

I think that the work that you do often goes under appreciated, and its definitely outside the realm of “popular vr content”, but incredibly important in documenting the history of this industry. Your videos won’t blow up immediately, but it’s helping set the standard in the space. Thanks for creating another awesome video, and keep up the good work!

There's a certain level of sadness that some people find more empathy and sympathy from AI and robots than they do other humans. There's an underlying context of how bad we can be to one another that some of our most vulnerable just retreat from the world to find comfort in people that dont actually exist.

Another thoughtful and thought-provoking video. Phia, you're basically making short documentaries at this point. I appreciate all the work you put into these.

Dating an A.I. is scary because of the things people could do with the knowledge the A.I. has. Still shocks the heck out of me when people know what I'm going to do/say just based off my body movements alone when I'm in VR. Nevermind what I say, or what my voice sounds like in the moment, and I don't have facial tracking yet. Then with A.I. it probably has a detailed list of all the things you've ever done/said. It could easily predict anything you're about to do, thus making you easily manipulatable. Heck, every now and then while in VR my mind just goes "I am just interacting with the virtual version of my friends, what if they were A.I. all along? Or if they got replaced at one point and they claimed they were just feeling like they were in a different mood or something?". As a sort of shower thoughts kind of thinking, I don't actually think that is happening (probably need another good 20-30 years before A.I. is that good) With that said, I'd still probably want to date an A.I. because of all the benefits you can get: Emotional support: Some people never get any. For a large portion of my life I didn't get any outside of just playing video games with friends, which is only one part of emotional support. Gotta have people to help you with depression, grief, anger, anxiety, whatever else as well. Back when I had a lot of anxiety, people who had no other friends would come to me because I wouldn't shove them away. There's a variety of reasons why some people would have absolutely no friends, and with varying reasons as to how their life turned them into that kind of person. When you're all alone, there is a very high chance your mind will stagnate or decay (which if left unchecked will make a person crazy overtime). Someone inclined to always improve can slow the process, but when you are alone, you will have gaps that you're missing. Everyone needs emotional support at some point at the very least. A lot of people also tend to hide from their friends when they need emotional support the most, an A.I. can help that person when that happens. Targeted information: A.I. would probably have a large database to pull from, so you'd probably have your own counselor/therapist/gym instructor/dietician to help you improve in every aspect of your life. My life was hell as a kid, I had to learn so much on my own so now my life is pretty good. Once search engines were a thing, that made things significantly faster and easier to improve. However, as time went on I realized there are some things you need information for but if you don't know that they even exist, how can you possibly know to look for it? I have friends to let me know what I've been missing out on in life, but an A.I. that knows everything about me would probably know even better things to let me learn about. Can look like anything: If we're talking desktop/phone, I'd be fine with anime looking characters, but not really preferred. If we're talking VR, it cannot look like a human, my mind is very very sensitive to VR, so when there's something that looks even remotely similar to a human, the uncanny valley makes my brain go "THERE'S SOMETHING VERY WRONG HERE!". So it'd have to look like a robot, a furry, or whatever other non-human option there is. Besides, if you're going digital, wouldn't you want something that's less real to make things more interesting? It's not like the A.I. would be forced to one form either. I also like the idea to easily distinguish between AI and an actual person. Also, I record some videos to keep as memories for later when I play some games, and now I just prefer to see the various avatars I use over what I look like IRL (I don't think I'm ugly, just people look boring. I see so many of them everyday lol. Variety is the spice of life!). So because of that, I've also just default to watching v-tubers for anything, so the transition to looking at an A.I. doing the same things would probably be seamless. You could definitely say I am hella biased though. Grew up with friends that were actually bullies attracted to me because I had strong emotions as a kid, thus easy to make cry/whatever. It's only recently that I've been actually enjoying people's friendships because I finally found some good people (that want to do more than just play/talk about video games).Fictional characters have not had this problem, but it's not the same because it's more like loving an ideal, rather than loving a person. However, if you combined ideals with stuff that makes a person, an actual person, I just don't see how real people could ever compete with A.I.. Especially when A.I. can have robot bodies IRL, and/or VR equipment lets you feel everything everywhere. Wrote a lot more than I expected. I hope whoever read all this had fun! Tired from a long day at work, and it'd been fun watching A.I. evolve over the years so I had to nerd out a bit. It's not there yet but it's so dang close!

A portion of this seems related to the 'pretty person gets the most tips' phenomenon. There is something in human nature that makes you want to gain favor with those you appreciate the aesthetic of. So, being able to make an avatar, that caters to that, seems a good way to manipulate that aspect of the instinct. Could be the next stage in psychological marketing.

The female form is literally so culturally significant

Wow. When you mentioned your first video it threw me back and made me realize how far you've come. Your editing is great, narration is smooth, and your pacing is fire. I'm really proud of you for sticking with your dream!

This topic is so interesting, I got chills watching it! The fact that an AI like Xiaoice is even possible is insane. The editing on this video was also super good.

the fact you can customize, tailor, and practically do anything more and more with an interactable Virtual Girl makes it such a huge gate way for those worried about the faults of IRL relationships.

I just like the part where the cat was talking to me. Some guy was giving everybody serious information about a subject, and it was all coming from an animated cat.

As a kizuna ai fan since debut, this feels amazing for someone to still talk about her after 6 years. Also this video was amazing!

Although a man, I was drawn to a female avatar when joining VRChat in 2018, and have 'inhabited' this avatar as 'Yumi' ever since. Now it serves another purpose. As a mental health supporter, I find that people can open up and talk to me as her more easily than if I was myself, a 53 year old man. But it's not just because Yumi is a virtual girl. In fact, she's not human but a 75cm tall fox girl (but still 53 years old). Disarmingly small and non-threatening. It somehow makes her more trustworthy. And that means I can save a lot of time when talking to people, gaining their trust so that they feel more at ease about telling me about what is troubling them.

It’s a whole new world for sure. But also really interesting how far back the roots stretch.

For me as an artist I appreciate this sort of magical wonder I get from having a character feel real and like we can actually communicate with them. It feels like a link between fantasy and reality. And when it's actually just a character like Hatsune Miku, it makes her un-cancelable, because no blame can be placed on a piece of software with a face, only the people who use it. It takes off that level of stress one can feel after finding out their fave is a messed up person, which stings.

I don't frequent VTubers often, but I'm a dude that hears about them and I think this is a good topic you brought up. There is much fear of the worst of people in relationships for both men and women that would make them want virtual ideal companions, or be one too! There are a lot of virtual girls that people love, but I think there is a key to virtual guys that I don't think is discovered yet. Peoples ideals can be twisted in unhealthy manners, but ideals are visionary-wise good things. Ideals benefit, right? I see a lot of people, even one in this comment section, worry about the idealization of others, or being idealized themselves, but I can confidently say that it isn't their own fault, nor is it the industries fault. Neither is it the fault of the person you see enjoying and consenting to being something you aren't a part of. It becomes a problem when you are being forced against your will. I get that it might feel that this sort of industry enables this behavior, but its remedied by telling people to respect everyone else's personal boundaries and identity, even your own and theirs (separately if must be). People should know about expectations, and get that there are people behind those kickass avatars whose shortcomings or successes shouldn't be exploited. It should be the same for real people too. That being said, ideals are liked, and there is a cause and effect to all of this. It's true that women are very culturally significant in this age of the internet world, as said in your closing statements. No doubt about it, it should be agreed that women personalities are a majority of the big earners because they are providing the interactions that men want. Internet culture has obsessed with waifus/anime girls/memes a lot, and I think this builds a part of these women's personalities that they enjoy bantering about too. Guys like it when a girl has the same interests as them, and they want to know what personality those women have and end up enjoying watching them regularly on streams. But has anyone wondered what a top earning male VTuber would look like? Michelangelo never saw God or Adam when painting the Sistine Chapel's ceiling, but he applied their features with what he thought was relevant to the best of these men/beings. He turned them into powerfully appreciated visuals, in spite that no one, not even the Pope that contracted him, knew what his mind had been inspired by. It's wrong to say that men cannot have interesting traits for celebrity when names such as Bonaparte, Marx, Roosevelt, Ice Cube, any Ramone, any Beatle and more, have been made hallmarks of personalities because they are considered ideal characters from men and women. This can likely happen on smaller, non world changing scales too, such as with VTubers. The shorter demand of male VTubers is a phenomenon that may come from envy of the ideal man from other men. There are definitely some self-admitting "losers" in the comments section, and probably many more who would hate calling themselves that. Some men prefer to go trans because they do not enjoy the culture they are expected to be in. Back to my initial hypothesis - Ideals benefit, right? If female VTuber personalities are the idealizations that empower more people into a feminine oriented VTubing career or its general audience, then what are the ideals that men (masculine, if need be) can symbolize in a virtual avatar to have the same positive effect? I think all those on the internet should realize that no one has experienced what is the best of a highly successful but positive male virtual avatar just yet, rather than think that men are unfit or unwelcome to it. Once so, will more men be inspired by an ideal masculine personality that is very clearly approachable by those who aren't him or are even a him? Will that make more and help bleed positivity into the real world? Surely, there is to be a future there if built. Thank you for your time on this and for your content. These aren't hypothesis that can be solved in a day, so no pressure. Your video formats are very unique and and I hope you continue having a happy channel growth. tl;dr for everybody: there is no tl;dr, go read a book

Particularly when I was a teenager and withdrawing from people, I did seek out AI to interact with. Of course, the chatbots in the early 00's were nothing compared to what we have now. But I could definitely see myself preferring the company of an AI to people. Particularly for those of us who are neurodivergent, having social interactions that almost literally follow a script? 100% we would start there. I think in a globally connected world like we have now, good AI could be the bridge between people who are socially isolated and other people. I don't think we really have to worry about a population crash, that's a capitalism problem. There will always be people who want children (Heck, I'm among them), but we might have a gentler, more connected world as the digital space and our physical spaces become more and more connected.

10:48 I'm so glad I could contribute to this. Keep digging into the strange world of VR and publishing what you find. Thanks for having me on - lmk when you want to chat again.

As a lonely, depressed guy, I can't lie and say I wouldn't at least check out what this stuff was like if it got advanced enough to be human like. Yes, it's sad but at least I am honest :/

"Self-proclaimed Vtuber" lol 🍉