"Compared with 5 years ago, the existence of virtual beings and the existence of virtual images by humans have gradually become less contradictory in the world, which is a very happy thing. It also became an opportunity for me to re-examine myself, after all, you see, I am no longer special! ”
On December 4, Kizuna AI (Chinese Name Trip Love), which has been debuting for 5 years and is regarded as the "pioneer" of the virtual anchor field, released a video announcing that it will stop the event indefinitely after the "hello, world 2022" concert on February 26, 2022, triggering a sensation in the V circle (virtual anchor circle). Who is Trip love? What impact has her appearance had on the virtual anchor and virtual idol industry? What does her withdrawal mean? From December 4th to 10th, Shell Financial Reporter interviewed virtual anchor practitioners and V-circle fans, and interpreted this.
Trip love image (from the official number of Station B)
Who is Trip love? The first person to be a virtual anchor
On December 1, 2016, in a video called "Self-Introduction" on the YouTube platform, Trip Love officially debuted. In the pure white background of the video, Trip Love wears a pink hair band and a white Love Bean style uniform, showing herself as a little girl, and calls herself artificial intelligence and "Virtual YouTuber" (referred to as Vtuber, virtual anchor). In the following days, Trip Love released videos at a daily frequency, and appeared in live broadcasts, imitation shows, live games, etc., interacting with the audience with high intensity, and gaining 400,000 fans in 4 months. In February 2018, the number of fans exceeded 1 million, and 5 months later, it exceeded 2 million, becoming the virtual anchor with the largest number of fans in the world. In the same year, Trippick Became a Come to Japan Ambassador for The Promotion of Japanese Tourism, receiving numerous honors.
The first video of Trip Love (screenshot of the official account)
In the eyes of the majority of V-circle fans, Trip Love is affectionately known as "Love Sauce" and is recognized as the first person to start a sect in the field of virtual anchors and even virtual idols. Luo Sen, a fan of Trip Love and who has worked in the subtitle group of Trip Love Translation, told Shell Financial Reporter that the reason why Love Sauce got this title is because she really opened a new era of virtual idol character positioning, "almost all the virtual idols after that have been inspired or influenced by her to varying degrees; on the other hand, from the end of 2016 to the middle of 2017, there is almost no possibility of competing with similar competitors on the market." ”
In Rosen's view, there are many reasons why Trip Love can succeed, "Is the choice of the person in the middle (that is, the real person responsible for speaking and interacting with fans, and wearing a motion capture device to go out of the country with a virtual image)?" Is the motion capture device sensitive enough? Is the script design interesting enough? Is the circle breaking linkage successful? Together, these factors have created the phenomenon of the bellwether of love sauce. ”
Shell financial reporter noted that in the famous two-dimensional virtual image, Hatsune, who debuted in 2007, became famous earlier in the future, but The future fame of Hatsune is mainly due to the developer's opening of its image and sound source library, which has triggered the enthusiasm of the majority of fans, which can be said that fans have jointly given Hatsune the future soul. At the beginning of his debut, from image design to operation, it was officially completed, and interacted with fans in the form of "middle man", and this model was subsequently imitated by almost all virtual anchors.
Domestic virtual idol "silent sauce" producer, photosynthetic rice CEO Yang Lin told Shell financial reporters, trip love is the first virtual Vtuber, the presentation method is completely different from Hatsune, Luo Tianyi and other "musical instrument" type virtual artists, is the first person in the middle of the people + mobile capture equipment to daily plus game quality content output as the main embodiment of the virtual idol, but also the first virtual idol of AI self-esteem, her appearance led to the birth of a number of virtual idols of the same type, but also attracted more attention to the virtual idol circle.
It is understood that the external image of the virtual idol is called "skin" by fans, but the virtual idol also needs a "soul" who is responsible for interacting with the audience behind the scenes, and the person in the middle assumes this role. From this point of view, Hatsune Mirai belongs to "skin without soul", and Tripai has achieved "skin soul unity". At present, many virtual anchors are also jokingly called "socket anchors", which is to quote this live broadcast route created by Trip Love.
"In addition to the good character image and good sound, another important point of love sauce is that her update frequency is very high. When Ai Sauce first debuted, the number of fans was not very many, and many viewers' comments or paintings could get the evaluation of buddha-figures or likes, and the interaction from the official was often the key point to enhance the stickiness of fans. Moreover, as a growing project, many of the characteristics of Ai sauce itself are gradually discovered and accepted by the audience during the live broadcast, which is quite different from the traditional idol project that announces most of the characteristics (especially the personality) in advance, and perhaps this is the interesting point of the plan as a plan that does not play cards according to the routine. Rosen told Shell Financial Reporter.
After the popularity of YouTube, Trip Love also entered China and set up official accounts on Weibo, B station, etc. Live and video programs include talk show-like spitting, live playing games, singing and dancing, etc. Yang Lin told reporters that the setting of tripping love is an artificial intelligence, but the personality presented is "artificial intellectual retardation", the character personality and defects are obvious, so that the real persona can more gain the trust and dependence of fans, starting from the initial video registration account, to the back of the "crosstalk", taking the character growth and fans to witness the cultivation of the line. Compared with the unattainable idols, this kind of active social platform, always accompanying the left and right people to set up more fans, "If trip love only chooses to develop in Japan at the beginning, the influence must be far lower than the debut from YouTube at the beginning." Historically, she was a pioneer. ”
At present, the number of fans on the YouTube platform exceeds 3 million, and the number of fans on the B station exceeds 1.4 million.
"After all, I am no longer special" let the fans "break the defense" 5 years of virtual anchors from the blue ocean to the red sea
On December 4, after tripping ai released a video announcing that it would stop the activity indefinitely, it instantly triggered a V-circle shock. So far, the video on The B station has 25,000 comments.
Station B user Peter Konikishi said that love sauce really put the human setting in mind, made a lot of original moves in line with the "virtual AI" human design, "many other Vtubers, just in the cover singing, flipping, painting, playing games, watching others live broadcast, chasing the drama to watch movies, rubbing the edge of the ball and other aspects of the work, and the real anchor who does not cover the skin is almost the same, as for some Vtuber's virtual personality, may just be the debut as a means of differentiating the powder, When you have a fixed fan base, you abandon this virtual shell and do the same work as the real anchor or idol, completely losing the meaning of 'virtual'. ”
In the video, the sentence that makes fans "break the defense" the most is that "compared with 5 years ago, the existence of virtual and the virtual image of human beings have gradually become unregulated in the world... After all, you see, I'm no longer special! ”
It is understood that in 2016, when the trip love debuted, the virtual anchor field is still a blue ocean, and with the birth of the trip love, the number of virtual anchors has gradually increased.
Rosen told reporters that according to the debut order, in addition to the "originator" of the V circle, there are also "four kings", namely Hui Yeyue, who is famous for his unique voice and inconspicuous video style, Xiao Bai, a computer girl with strong FPS game strength, Uncle Fox Niang, who has a male voice and female appearance, and Fu Ming, who is still active. "These Vtubers are the forerunners who dared to eat crabs during the blue ocean period of the entire industry. After 2018, the virtual anchor industry became the Red Sea, and according to statistics, thousands of people participated in this industry, including large companies and newly established companies. ”
According to User Local, from tripping love debut to September 2020, 16.4 billion yen was injected into the virtual anchor field in just four years. Huge funds have spawned a number of very mature operating companies, such as Rainbow Society, Hololive and so on. These operating companies have vigorously expanded the number of artists under their umbrella and seized the market. Among them, the Vtuber artist organization under the Japanese co., LTD. Cover entered the domestic market to cooperate with station B, and once occupied most of the head traffic of the V circle of station B, with a huge number of hardcore fans. At the same time, many virtual idols have emerged in China, such as the transnational virtual idol project "Battle Bar Geji" launched by Le Element in September 2018. It was launched in 2013 as the official cartoon image of CCTV's XINKE Anime Channel, and in 2019, it was announced as the reincarnation of the virtual UP main rebirth of Xinke Niang.
On June 26, 2021, Chen Rui, chairman and CEO of Station B, revealed in a speech on the 12th anniversary of Bilibili that more than 32,000 virtual anchors have started broadcasting on Station B in the past year, an increase of 40% year-on-year.
In the past 5 years, the pattern of the virtual idol market has also been changing, such as hololive's anchors "Akai Shin" and "Kiryu Coco" due to improper remarks related to Taiwan, resulting in the collapse of the house, and hololive, which was once in the sky at Station B, had to withdraw from the domestic market. Smashing down huge sums of money on "Battle It Goji! In February this year, the six "middle people" announced their "graduation" (no longer serving as people in the virtual idol), and the project tended to stagnate.
At the same time, cutting-edge virtual idols are also on the rise.
On December 10, Shell financial reporter found in the "sharp rise" column of the B station virtual anchor data website vtbs.moe created by fans that the virtual game anchor C sauce です rose by 11,800 fans in one day, followed by the official account "AIChannel Official" that received a lot of attention due to the withdrawal news, which rose to 6397 in one day. In addition, some of the head of the domestic virtual idol groups such as B station under the ViltuaReal, Lehua's A-Soul, etc. have also maintained a stable trend of rising fans, such as the A-Soul launched in November 2020, the most popular virtual idol in the group Jiaran currently has more than 1.3 million fans in the B station, A-Soul's popularity has also derived "I really like you", "cute pinch", "take me away", "onset small essay" and many other subcultural "terriers" , has begun to break the circle of spread.
In the case of many "back waves" emerging in an endless stream, many fans' names for tripping love have slowly changed from "love sauce" to "old love".
The "Twin Incident" is boycotted, and the person and the virtual idol should "merge into one"
"I first came into contact with Vtuber in 2016 and 2018, and tripping on love was one of the opportunities for me to 'get into the circle'." V circle fan Ayano told Shell Financial Reporter, "Next I paid attention to some of hololive's virtual idols, after hololive withdrew, the domestic virtual anchor industry experienced a period of empty window, and finally, I 'black to powder' A-Soul, mainly because their operation is more careful." In fact, the V circle is another form of rice circle, after all, they are all idols, nothing more than a set of good-looking skin bags. The current V circle is not a blue ocean that can earn traffic and attention as long as there is a virtual image three or four years ago. Only virtual anchors who have always maintained a sense of virtuality, maintained the original human setting, have a strong script, a good live broadcast or video rhythm mastery ability, or a virtual anchor with excellent game technology can make people pay attention to it all the time. ”
Shell financial reporter noted that for virtual idols, "maintaining the human setting" is very important, and the "middle man" model created by Trip Love has won the applause of the whole hall at the same time, but also laid a hidden danger for the operation of virtual anchors.
"In the vast majority of cases, fans bind the person in the middle to the avatar, that is, the fans basically do not accept the act of replacing the person without changing the image." Rosen told Shell Financial Reporter.
It is understood that the first generation of "middle people" of tripping love is the Japanese female voice actress Kasuga Akira, on May 25, 2019, the trip love operator launched the "four trip love" project, so that the number of people in the trip love increased to 4 people, which eventually led to a boycott by fans. The rapid rise in fans in 2018 also came to an abrupt end, until the project was scrapped, and Tripp love, which returned as the "first number of love", gradually regained the recognition of fans.
"Your carefully run virtual idol is the spiritual partner of the fans, the partner who accompanies them to heal them, the fans are convinced of this, and give you all their feelings, at this time, you tell him: 'I didn't expect it, there are four people under my shell, namely Machine One, Machine Two, Machine Three and Machine Four', which is trampling on the feelings of fans and tearing their trust." Yang Lin told Shell Financial Reporter.
"We all know that these other dimensional virtual idol projects are the result of a person dubbing a model in the eyes of people in the real world, but just like the dedicated staff who play animated characters in Disney, choosing to be in a fairy tale must first be believed." Including the operation team, fans, all need hot belief. For example, everyone in our team is working and living with Silent Sauce, in our group photo, in our group, Silent Sauce is there, the New Year's red envelope will not be less than hers, Silent Sauce has no one in it, and our whole team firmly believes in this. Yang Lin said.
Many fans of Trippy Love have publicly stated that if Trip Love had not engaged in the "twin incident" that year, its operation should have been more successful, and perhaps it would not have "retreated".
"Ai Sauce's doppelganger project ended in failure, and the new lady replaced four generations of people in a row and finally stopped the activity indefinitely. This fully illustrates the psychology of fans who firmly bind the person in the middle with the avatar. In our view, the voice of the middle person, the character and the avatar it has are like a person's personality and its appearance, which cannot and should not be replaced. Unless a new character is adopted, we will not accept a character that we are already familiar with and make another person's voice heard. Rosen told Shell Financial Reporter.
Yang Lin said that the operation of many virtual idols is to find a two-dimensional attribute voice actor in the market to serve, and the problem with this is that for the voice actor, the person in the avatar is just one of the many jobs she has taken, and her completion of this work is more like an outsourcing person treating the outsourcing project, and it is difficult to establish emotions. "Operators of virtual idol projects should understand that since they are virtual idols, the soul and body should always be one, and they should make every effort to avoid developing into a voice actor + a model 'each theory' situation."
Why do fans like virtual idols?
Rosen said that the reason why he likes virtual idols is actually very simple, the traditional two-dimensional culture, such as comics, animation and music games, is basically a one-way information input. Virtual idols bring people more realism and interaction. You will feel that although the opposite side of the screen is a virtual image, under the appearance of the virtual image, there is a human heart that is as real as you, "As a two-dimensional enthusiast, I like the exquisite human settings and good sounds, and the painting style of the second dimension also makes me feel very close." All of this combines to become a virtual idol. At present, the environment of the virtual idol circle is more complicated than it was at the beginning, and there is some tendency to move closer to the traditional entertainment industry style, but it still retains some of the characteristics of its two-dimensional circle. ”
In Ayana's view, the reason why she likes virtual idols is actually that the emotional needs of the opposite sex shift from reality to online, "Offline, the emotions and money and time we pay are likely to be unequal with the income of happiness, and online, the anchor can reply to your words, can interact benignly, and reduces some of the cost of silence." ”
However, as of now, the development of virtual anchors/virtual idols still faces a lot of real pressure. A set of public data shows that as of August 18, 2021, of the 3472 virtual anchors that Station B has relative attention to, 1827 people have a revenue of 0 yuan that month, that is to say, more than half of them have not recorded a penny in the account. In contrast, the high operating costs of virtual anchors, some practitioners introduced to reporters that behind virtual idols often need a team to support, including directors, scripts, motion catchers, voice actors, etc., and even the simplest personal virtual anchors also need to buy motion capture equipment and pay for modifying models. The turnover expenditure of some professional virtual anchors even reaches the level of tens of millions of yuan per year.
"Blessings trip love, I hope she can get better and better in the future, the team that has done the virtual idol project knows how difficult it is, but as long as you don't get off the table, there will be opportunities, and when there are more users and customers recognized, the value of the project will be maximized." Yang Lin told Shell Financial Reporter.
In the video announcing hibernation, Tripo Ai said that she would entrust her 3D models to the management of kizuna AI, where she worked, and as for the reason for the hibernation, Tripe Ai said, "I don't know who created me to start my journey in the white space, but because I started from scratch, I want to find the meaning of my birth." Recently, I have been exposed to new words that sound so difficult but interesting about metaversity, NFT, etc., and I want to bring these to everyone and create a happier experience for everyone. "With the current technology and environment and the current situation, it is difficult for me to achieve this goal, and I really want to connect with everyone in the world and become a smarter super AI, so I need time to sleep."
Trippick Love says in the December 4 video that it will go dormant indefinitely (screenshot of official account)
Beijing News shell financial reporter Luo Yidan Editor Xi Lili Proofreader Wei Zhuo