Why is everyone so OBSESSED with Virtual Girls??

virtual girls have taken over the world by storm as influencers idols and youtubers become some of the richest and most followed personalities in modern culture ranging from instagram models computer synthesized singers v youtubers who delude parasocial relationships via live streaming we are obsessed but what does all of this say about modern day culture are we replacing so-called real girls with idealistic unattainable standards and should we be scared what it eludes when it comes to the future of human relationships and at the extreme population levels today we're deep diving into one of the most controversially relevant topics that i care about virtual girls [Music] i'm fia and i'm a self-proclaimed virtual youtuber i made my avatar about three years ago without really knowing anything about vrv tubing because i just found the idea of taking my physical self and converting it into a virtual one to be really entrancing but after making the most viewed v tuber tutorials on youtube and being part of the first wave of them to pioneer the normalcy of representing yourself in a virtual avatar i feel like i've really gained an extensive amount of insight as to the reasons why we're so obsessed with virtual characters and why everyone nowadays seems to want to be one there's a lot to cover here and you can tell i really love this topic because it was the main focus of my very first video on this entire channel we're gonna dig deep into this one pretty hard laying out all the good the bad and the ugly through my own personal lens to evaluate what virtuality means right now in the potentials of how it will shape our future 1932 a 100-pound plaster mannequin was sculpted by lester gaba a retail display designer in new york city she was deemed cynthia and had an appearance so realistic with human imperfections that when she was posed around the city in public places luxury brands were sending her fashionable outfits and jewelry for her to flaunt she was being featured in big time magazines getting fan mail and even attending royal weddings this was a mannequin a deliberately cultivated shadow living the life of a human celebrity although clearly lacking the aspect of well pixels this was a clear demonstration of our potential to idolize women who aren't real but as we fast forward through the past century we watched celebrity persona obsession hurl past political leaders into rock stars movie stars and eventually online influencers in 2007 japan's very own krypton media company birthed life into what is still one of the most widely known virtual girls hatsune miku [Music] she's the most widely recognized vocaloid a vocal sound bank that can be purchased and used in music production softwares like an instrument where anyone can fine-tune the voices to sing or speak however they want as i'm sure you're well aware the fact anyone could get their hands ahold of miku and use your character with full commercial rights letter to exploding in popularity within just a few years she was topping charts and performing live concerts as a hologram in conjunction with some of the most popular vocaloid producers and as we'll discuss shortly you'll see this won't be the only time japan pioneered a virtual girl phenomenal youtube was definitely one of the leading factors in vocaloid popularity as it was just starting to hit off in the late 2000s but outside of nikkanikani anime waifus we see characters like ami yamato in 2011 begin their youtubing careers she wasn't trying to be a worldwide pop star but rather a pretty normal girl doing pretty normal girl on youtube things like vlogs and makeup this was also the year that twitch originally justin.tv was published which we'll also mention in a bit but only a few years later we see what i would consider the first wave of the current virtual girl obsession in 2015 one of the most well-loved characters of all time and made their first youtube vlog barbie officially marking being a youtuber is every kid's dream job i guess the miracle whip original dressing a stable character from the 50s reimagined as a post 2000s virtual influencer not bad looking for being in her 60s but 2016 rolls around and we meet the virtual instagram star lil michaela what's up homies and haters it's your girl michaela the ethnically ambiguous model was a hot talking point as brand started pouring money into her the same way if not more so than other celebrity social media product placement stars her realism in photos was shocking at the time and she's even pulled off a full-on music career unlike most of the virtual girls thus far lil michaela's appeal really stems from her realistic appearance bringing her in the mainstream interest that the cartoon-looking and anime-style girls just can't well at least at that time because at the end of 2016 something monumental happened we got the first ever v tuber kizuna i although we saw other virtual creators on the youtube platform before this kizunai was different she wasn't a pre-rendered animation this was a live character being controlled via motion capture all of a sudden we had a virtual girl that we can interact with back and forth in real time via live streaming you could type a message to her if she read something funny she'd laugh smiling dancing and singing although her main audience was japanese she told us flat and clear what the future was worldwide this entire idea of using motion capture and facial tracking to do live content didn't take long to catch on as other big-brained individuals with the right knowledge and hardware connections started their own lower scaled personal endeavors with apple ar kit face tracking's release in 2017 people were using the latest generation iphones to do accurate and realistic facial movements outside of just crummy webcam technology not only was face tracking starting to become accessible but so was body tracking and avatar control via virtual reality in 2016 the original oculus rift and vive headsets were released to the public and companies realize they could use extra vive wand controllers on various parts of their bodies to do full body tracking that's why in 2017 vive took that exact same tracking tech and threw it in their vive tracking puck that anyone could purchase and it was such a hit that they even began selling them in exclusive bundles with headsets later on in japan vr chat also came out in 2017 meaning regular individuals interested in vr and virtual avatars could also throw together their own characters to inhabit and stream with including the booming twitch streaming platform though all this tech was very niche and underdeveloped at the time however at the end of that year one of the most culturally significant online entertainment companies of our time was born starting with tokino sora the founding member of hololive tokino sora clearly got her hands on some virtual reality tech that you can see in her very first stream of september 2017 to a whopping 13 unsuspecting viewers although a bit cheesy from the lack of facial expression in finger tracking this was pretty revolutionary as this random japanese girl figured out how to be a v tuber without a full production team one of her supporters joined up with her to take her idolism to the next level by partnering up with covercorp who were already looking to create their own youtuber applications together they collaborated to create the hololive app that december making it possible for tokinosura fans to view her model irl through augmented reality at this time they opened up the first round of auditions to bring on more potential idols who hit off during their debuts that spring niji sanji came along that time focusing their efforts on 2d idols using live 2d versus expensive 3d models this was also a hit and halalive joined suit quickly after with their first gin idol suicide trying a 2d model as well all of a sudden japan's v youtuber fan base was exploding as fans rallied behind their favorite girls enjoying their interactions with each other and supporting their favorites they blew up so immensely in fact that their popularity spread overseas as clip channels would take funny stream moments and translate them into english subtitles and boy was that the start of everything the youtuber niche was quietly exploding in japan and your chat was bringing in western attention to the very tiny first wave of english youtuber streamers people were becoming self-aware that anyone could become a virtual girl the interest was slowly snowballing until the next big blow-up happened project melody i saw project melody the virtual cam girl blowing up on the internet which i saw as my opportunity to weigh in on making my first video there was a spur of general excitement and controversy from angry iroqum girls getting mad but soon everyone wanted to know how they could start beethoven too the western interest in hollow life spurred the first round of english hololive auditions in may and then when they debuted that summer everybody wanted a slice of that cake suddenly what was a niche community of english youtubers was filled with hundreds and then thousands of debuts including the likes of monster streamers such as pokemane the new holla live members a cured hundreds of thousands of subscribers and bargara hit a million subscribers within a month of her debut becoming the fastest growing youtuber of all time it literally was a virtual girl explosion you had the likes of homegrown youtubers like iron mouse joining together with vr chat streamers to create the shoujo as the obsession rose ahead of people commissions were hot in command and thousands of dollars are being thrown at lewd kawaii queens taking advantage of parasocial relationships online and oh that brings us to the next section virtual girl relationships i just think it's way more connected to internet culture than a human with characters we're actually coming back to what's true online which is expressing yourself through whatever form of identity you want this is christopher travers who runs virtualhumans.org as an expert in all things virtual people related i wanted to dig into his opinion on the subject there's this tendency this propensity that a female character is going to do better because of the demographics interest in those characters effectively you're elevating these very cute girls and that bleeds up into anime culture it bleeds up now into youtuber culture which has its origins in anime culture i think it's tending towards celebrating the female form and as characters a large portion of youtuber appeal comes from their idealism and escape from reality they provide i mean who doesn't love a cute meme lord posting anime characters all without the intimidation and fear of rejection that eye girl girls have to offer so what ends up happening is for those who can't find fulfillment in their social lives or they can't find fulfillment in their dating lives they turn to corners of the internet so those who are very deeply interested in anime and cartoons aren't turning to pornography they're turning to relationships and turning to characters to fulfill them uh the internet is and virtual reality is designed to simulate reality the laws of respect of other humans still apply you know it's good to find escapism in virtual reality but understand like you're a human and the people you meet are also humans but when we backtrack the characters like little michaela or miku there is no person behind the curtain your relationship to these females is entirely an illusion and at this point we enjoy them from a distant as celebrities or models the same way that we do with other celebrities or models but what about a.i voice assistants have been a thing since apple added siri to the iphone in 2011. alexa and cortana followed suit in 2014. although cortana is based off of a character from halo neither siri nor alexa have physical character representations of themselves these virtual girls are used by almost everyone in some form in our day-to-day life but it's not even really a question that we don't typically form emotional relationships with them and that's definitely by design now meet azuma hikari the virtual made ai girlfriend of your dreams well at least if you're japanese she's the face and main selling point of the 2016 product gatebox which is designed to be something like an amazon alexa that does tasks and tells you the weather except for she's your virtual girlfriend who will also give you emotional support and send you text messages while you're away that she can't wait for you to get home while hikari is the face of gatebox they also collaborate to allow other custom characters as well without the ai chat features and this is all possible with the price of about three thousand dollars but if you're feeling really spicy in 2021 they announced the gate box grande where you can take your virtual characters and make them human size while it's currently meant for things like virtual fashion events i'm sure that you could imagine the other intended use cases as well if you thought this was just another weird japanese thing for a small niche of lonely guys you'll be shocked what i talk about next which is a chinese ai girlfriend chatbot that as of all the way back in 2020 has interacted with over 600 million individual users zhaois users have conversations with her over chatting apps like wechat and the amount of data that xiaowice has been trained on through these chatbots interactions is so substantial that she has replaced the need for a female companion in an unthinkable amount of male users lives she will flirt with you text you completely uninitiated or just be an emotional companion serving as a therapeutic life counselor but the chatbot doesn't hold back anything it learns which includes realistic sexting yes the sexual encounters are so convincing that males even report her being their first true love and the data supports this the majority of users are lower class males with insecurity issues who are generally just less well-off or confident but all of a sudden they go from feeling unwantable to having feelings of being desired and loved by a female companion and innate human need that's been yet to be fulfilled previously in their lives in recent years xiaoweix has expanded to the point that you can fully customize their appearance and gender during the beijing 2022 winter olympics some of the gold medalist athletes even used a version of zhaowais that acted as a handsome young man coach in their training however zhaowais got to the point that she was so realistic that the company actually was forced to dumb her down because she started engaging in sensitive political and adult conversations of course your conversations with xiaowice are monitored and there are significant questions to be raised about data usage gained from these ai interactions just in general however in comparison here in the west you might have heard about replica ai which is arguably way lamer in comparison but still has been a hot topic for the unknowing western users it reached 10 billion users worldwide during the pandemic being one of the most well-known chat bot apps right now however what's interesting about these companions you custom make in replica is that you can actually interact with them in virtual reality i'm not gonna lie that the last time i checked out the replica ai app i was certainly not impressed and i can't say that the adaptation of the vr version looks much better but the fact that you can interact with your companion in virtual reality segways into a whole nother topic of its own i am obviously a virtual reality channel and i think vr is one of the most compelling technologies available now with the most incredible potential and this goes for augmented reality and mixed reality as well which bring the virtual world into the physical one here in vrchat we interact with virtual avatars while in virtual avatars ourselves which ends up feeling extremely human at its core but of course vr has other uses as well that rank very highly on the steamvr store page which includes interacting with females in other specific ways this really isn't that shocking as it is just an extension of what the internet is already but i think the interesting speculation comes in with mixed reality this is where all the topics we've brought together thus far combined into one controversial light hyper realistic simulated real world partners all the examples of virtual girls we've covered thus far are very different from one another in application and not a single one of them can fulfill the needs for a true human relationship replacement but if we put different parts together we can do a mind experiment to imagine what a potential future could look like using empathic ai customizability cross-platform compatibility and haptic touch we've already seen how convincing chatbots can get based off of x so if we imagine that this technology continues to spread worldwide at some point in the near future ai will become so advanced that when we interact with it it feels and speaks no differently than a human would whether that's unreal engine meta humans or vrchat anime girls we should be able to customize them as well to take any kind of form we desire whether that's their hair color bust size personality traits or anything else that can be directly shaped to our personal will now from here we can start interacting with this companion at any given point via various technology methods whether that's texting them from your phone displaying their hologram in your home or going out an augmented reality date to taco bell it's totally up to you i personally have used the world's top virtual reality haptic and force feedback technology this year at cs and awe and it is absolutely mind-boggling how realistic haptic technology can get in a ready player one future you could even imagine how realistic intimate interactions with your virtual partner can get inside of virtual reality where you feel everything at this point what good is a physical relationship if every emotional or physical need you can have can be satisfied with a virtual partner why would you need a real one although there's some pretty obvious answers here i do believe there's a large demographic of people who will genuinely prefer this option versus the hardships of maintaining a sound irl relationship which is one of the hardest but most fulfilling challenges in a human's life but what are the social consequences like will population loss actually be a harm but if someone can't find a human relationship what's the harm in them developing a virtual one that satisfies the same needs but then again is removing the human from human relationship unethical or a danger to future society there's so many questions to ask once the store is opened and it's already starting to crack this is all totally plausible to happen in our lifetimes at least to a decent extent if people are already developing life-changing relationships to chat bots and donating their entire wallets to youtubers this foreshadows the brink of a new generation of society unlike anything we've seen before in the history of humanity itself i don't know if any of these things really fit into our current understanding of humanity but it's definitely time we start facing some of these important questions before it happens starting with our virtual girl obsession sorry to all the virtual dudes out there i technically jiffed you out on making this video but i just find the female form to be so much more culturally significant in every single situation that i covered in this video there are some male examples of every single one of these points and i highly encourage you to go out and seek them next month is the release of the virtual reality show vr chat studio and we're going to be hosting omega big events there august is the last month to get your own star in the lobby with your name on it by joining my virtual vip patreon tier to show me support and making more videos just like this more details are coming in a few days so we'll join my discord and twitter for new updates comment your own thoughts and experiences below like whether or not you'd date an ai like this video if you enjoyed it and to the virtual reality show for more content just like this anyways thanks so much for watching i've been your host fia and i'll see you in the next video bye special thanks to this month's patreon members and virtual vips ala grief angel black amethyst christopher brown clarity dark punk dutec gs genesis mk mastery casey rio neoplasm nair nightmare 35 prism rai 600-3333 score mallard snake 8 head truth seeker sally wassituna yamazakura you

Channel: The Virtual Reality Show

Views: 49,378

Keywords: virtual reality, vr, hololive, virutal girls, virtual youtubers, virtual influencers, vr influencers, vtubers, hololive debut, gwar gura, lilmiquela, projekt melody, vshojo, girls, vr girls, vrchat, gatebox, obsession, video essay, analysis, ai, ai girlfriend, girlfriend, vr girlfriend, vr boyfriend, girl, cynthia the mannequin, history, future, joi, ready player one, blade runner, her, movie, documentary, phia, phiabunny, vrchat avatars, vrchat tutorial, vrchat guide, vrchat funny, vr future

Id: gYkZk1jBAak

Length: 20min 50sec (1250 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 19 2022