A or is an online entertainer who uses a virtual

avatar Avatar (, ; ) is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means . It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearance" is sometimes u ...

generated using

computer graphics Computer graphics deals with generating images and art with the aid of computers. Computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, digital art, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. ...

. Real-time motion capture

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

or technology are often—but not always—used to capture movement. The digital trend originated in Japan in the mid-2010s, and has become an international online phenomenon in the 2020s. A majority of VTubers are English- and Japanese-speaking

YouTuber A YouTuber is a content creator and social media influencer who uploads or creates videos on the online video-sharing website YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006 ...

s or

live streamers An online streamer or live streamer is a type of social media influencer who broadcasts themselves online through a live stream to an audience. History Streaming arose in the early 2010s, originating on sites like YouTube where users could upl ...

who use avatar designs. By 2020, there were more than 10,000 active VTubers. Although the term is an allusion to the video platform

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

, they also use websites such as

Niconico , known before 2012 as , is a Japanese video sharing service based in Tokyo, Japan. "Niconico" or "nikoniko" is the Japanese sound symbolism, Japanese ideophone for smiling. As of 2021, Niconico is the 34th most-visited website in Japan, accordi ...

Twitch Twitch may refer to: Biology * Muscle contraction ** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation ** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction ** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle c ...

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

, and

Bilibili Bilibili (stylized in all lowercase), nicknamed B Site, is a Chinese online video sharing website based in Shanghai where users can submit, view, and add overlaid commentary on videos. Bilibili hosts videos on various themes, including ...

. The first entertainer to use the phrase "virtual YouTuber",

Kizuna AI is a Japanese virtual YouTuber (VTuber) and fictional character currently part of Kizuna AI Inc., a subsidiary of digital entertainment company Activ8. From her debut in 2016 until 2021, she was the most subscribed VTuber on YouTube, with ...

, began creating content on

in late 2016. Her popularity sparked a VTuber trend in Japan, and it spurred the establishment of specialized agencies to promote them, including major ones such as

Hololive Production (; stylized in lowercase) is a virtual YouTuber agency owned by Japanese tech entertainment company Cover Corporation. In addition to acting as a multi-channel network, Hololive Production also handles licensing, merchandising, music product ...

Nijisanji is a virtual YouTuber agency owned by Anycolor Inc. (formerly Ichikara Inc.). The agency was founded in 2018 with the purpose of promoting the use of Live2D models and live streaming as opposed to the 3D and clips format popularized by Kizuna ...

, and

VShojo VShojo (officially VShojo, Inc.) is an American talent agency that focuses on promoting VTuber content creators based in San Francisco, California. VShojo bills itself as a "talent first" agency, oriented towards providing resources (such as m ...

. Fan translations and foreign-language VTubers have marked a rise in the trend's international popularity. Virtual YouTubers have appeared in domestic advertising campaigns and have broken livestream-related world records.

Overview

VTubers are online entertainers who are typically

s or

. They use avatars created with programs such as

Live2D Live2D is an animation technique used to animate static images—usually anime-style characters—that involves separating an image into parts and animating each part accordingly, without the need of frame-by-frame animation or a 3D model. This ...

, portraying characters designed by online artists. VTubers are not bound by physical limitations, and many of them engage in activities that are unconstrained by their real-world identity. Some VTubers, particularly those from

marginalized Social exclusion or social marginalisation is the social disadvantage and relegation to the fringe of society. It is a term that has been used widely in Europe and was first used in France in the late 20th century. In the EU context, the Euro ...

communities, choose to use avatars to reflect their

online identity Internet identity (IID), also online identity, online personality, online persona or internet persona, is a social identity that an Internet user establishes in online communities and websites. It may also be an actively constructed presentatio ...

for personal comfort and safety reasons.

Transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...

VTubers may use their avatars as a means to better reflect their preferred presentation to their audience. VTubers often portray themselves as a

kayfabe In professional wrestling, kayfabe (pronounced ) is the portrayal of staged events within the industry as "real" or "true", specifically competition, rivalries, and relationships between participants. The term has evolved to become a code word ...

character, not unlike

professional wrestling Professional wrestling, often shortened to either pro wrestling or wrestling,The term "wrestling" is most often widely used to specifically refer to modern scripted professional wrestling, though it is also used to refer to Real life, real- ...

; Mace, an AEW wrestler who himself began streaming on Twitch as a VTuber in 2021, remarked that the two professions were "literally the same thing".

Ironmouse Ironmouse is a Puerto Rican VTuber, singer, and Twitch (service), Twitch Video game live streaming, streamer. Active since 2017, she is a founding member of the VTuber group VShojo launched in 2020. In 2024, she became the List of most-subscribed ...

described her character as being akin to a

superhero A superhero or superheroine is a fictional character who typically possesses ''superpowers'' or abilities beyond those of ordinary people, is frequently costumed concealing their identity, and fits the role of the hero, typically using their ...

costume. VTubers are associated with

Japanese popular culture Japanese popular culture includes Cinema of Japan, Japanese cinema, Japanese cuisine, cuisine, Television in Japan, television programs, anime, manga, Video gaming in Japan, video games, Music of Japan, music, and doujinshi, all of which retain ol ...

and aesthetics, such as

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

and

manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

, and

moe anthropomorphism is a form of anthropomorphism in anime, manga, and games where '' moe'' qualities are given to non-human beings (such as animals, plants, supernatural entities and fantastical creatures), objects, concepts, or phenomena. In addition to ''moe' ...

with human or non-human traits. Some VTubers use

anthropomorphic Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics to ...

avatars, including non-human characters such as animals.

Technology

A VTuber's avatar is typically animated using a

webcam A webcam is a video camera which is designed to record or stream to a computer or computer network. They are primarily used in Videotelephony, video telephony, live streaming and social media, and Closed-circuit television, security. Webcams can b ...

and software, which captures the streamer's motions, expressions, and mouth movements, and maps them to a two- or three-dimensional model. Both free and paid programs have been developed for loading models and performing

motion capture Motion capture (sometimes referred as mocap or mo-cap, for short) is the process of recording high-resolution motion (physics), movement of objects or people into a computer system. It is used in Military science, military, entertainment, sports ...

, with some capable of being used without a webcam (albeit with pre-determined animations), and some also supporting

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a Simulation, simulated experience that employs 3D near-eye displays and pose tracking to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video gam ...

hardware, or

hand tracking In the field of gesture recognition and image processing, finger tracking is a high-resolution technique that is employed to know the position of a user's fingers in three-dimensional space. It was first developed in 1969. Finger tracking can be ...

devices such as the Leap Motion Controller. Some programs offload motion tracking to external phone cameras via

mobile apps A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...

to save system resources, and take advantage of hardware features (such as

Face ID Face ID is a Biometrics, biometric authentication facial recognition system, facial-recognition system designed and developed by Apple Inc. for the iPhone and iPad Pro. The system can be used for unlocking a device, making Apple Pay, payments, ac ...

iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

) that can enable more precise motion capture. In 2022, VTube Studio released an update allowing for AI-accelerated facial motion capture using

Nvidia RTX Nvidia RTX (also known as Nvidia GeForce RTX under the GeForce brand) is a professional visual computing platform created by Nvidia, used in mainstream PCs for gaming as well as being used in workstations for designing complex large-scale model ...

graphics cards. The

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