VTubers as Animated Performances

Bridging Database Consumption and Digital Kinship

Resumo

This paper examines VTubers as a novel form of animated performance merging human and virtual elements, rooted in anime and digital media aesthetics. Focusing on Hololive Production, it explores how VTubers diverge from traditional anime’s pre-scripted narratives by facilitating dynamic, interactive performances shaped by real-time fan engagement. It draws on Azuma Hiroki’s “database consumption” concept to argue that VTubers extend otaku culture by enabling fans to interact with modular character traits, allowing VTubers’ identities to evolve through improvisation and collaboration. Henry Jenkins’s “transmedia storytelling” and “convergence culture” theories are employed to analyze VTubers’ cross-platform expansion and global cultural influence. Furthermore, this paper addresses the emotional labor involved in VTuber performances, using Donna Haraway’s “companion species” theory to explore how VTubers foster reciprocal, emotionally rich relationships with their audiences. By positioning VTubers as a hybrid phenomenon in which anime aesthetics, digital companionship, and technological performances intersect, this paper offers a new perspective on virtual embodiment, digital kinship, and identity formation in contemporary media. It argues that VTubers represent a significant shift in how audiences engage with digital media, transcending traditional boundaries between fiction and reality, while raising ethical concerns about the sustainability of this emotional labor.