Text | Zinc scale, author | Meteor, edit | Chen Dengxin
Luo Tianyi, a strange woman who is well-known in the domestic ACG circle, she is a singer, but not flesh and blood, but a combination of a vocaloid engine with a synthetic voice and a beautiful girl anime image with light gray hair.
And like video games and anime dramas, as the influence of Generation Z continues to increase, the virtual digital singer composed of 0s and 1s, which is loved by "otaku", has begun to appear more frequently in people's vision, offering songs and dances to people.
However, time has passed, and the virtual people confined to the ACG subcultural circle seem to be ushering in an unprecedented turning point.
On February 2, 2022, at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Cultural Festival, Luo Tianyi, a virtual digital singer who has been debuting for ten years, wore a cheongsam on the stage and surprised the global audience with a song "Time to shine" and graceful dance.
For mainstream cultural festivals such as the Olympic Cultural Festival and the International Arts Festival, the choice of Luo Tianyi is an attempt in the context of a new era, and from the results, this attempt can not be described as unsuccessful, and for Luo Tianyi, being able to embark on such a high-level stage means more opportunities and broader development space.
In fact, in addition to Luo Tianyi, some of the company's self-made avatars, virtual idols and other "virtual people" such as virtual anchors have also been frequently invited to participate in various marketing activities, which has become a new trend.
However, as the "big killer" of generation Z, are these anime-style handsome men and beautiful women really beneficial and harmless?
Will the "virtual person" whose concept is heating up take over the "metacosm"?
Before moving on to the topic of "virtual people", let's talk about some digressions.
Somehow, Internet companies seem to be particularly keen to provide the capital market with new stories full of sci-fi elements in recent years, in addition to "virtual people", people are more familiar with the "enduring" cryptocurrency, trying to explain that they are not "IQ tax" NFTs, and last year's hot metacosm.
The popularity of the metaverse in 2021 must be obvious to all, since the "first share of the meta-universe" and the sandbox game platform Roblox New York Stock Exchange were listed on the New York Stock Exchange in March of the same year, the concept of the meta-universe took off in a flash of time, becoming a new word for enterprises to compete for the boom, and its momentum was so grand that there was even a grand situation in the stock market "The meta-universe will rise", so that the stock exchange had to send a letter of concern to some companies, asking them to confirm that their business is indeed related to the content involved in the meta-universe concept. Instead of simply "rubbing heat".
Unfortunately, perhaps because consumer imagination cannot keep up with the company that is at the forefront of the trend, the growth of the group willing to buy these concepts is not as optimistic as the enterprises think, and in the end, in addition to earning some curious eyeballs, the company only reaped a short-lived dividend.
Shortly after the start of February 2022, Meta, which successfully lost "Face" last year, released its fourth quarter 2021 financial report. As the last summary of the "first year of the meta-universe", the data in this financial report is obviously not very satisfactory. Its data shows that the "Reality Lab" (FRL) division, which is responsible for Meta's meta-universe business, has lost more than $10 billion in operating losses over the past year, and the expansion trend is quite obvious.
The day after the earnings report, the U.S. stock market plunged 26% after hours, and the market value evaporated by more than $200 billion. While CEO Zuckerberg attributed the historic share price plunge to "Meta's weak outlook for current quarterly revenue" on a conference call, he has since stopped talking about the meta-universe business and said it would "focus on short video products that are growing and developing" to cope with competitive pressure from other short video platforms.
Zuckerberg was rumored to have tears in the corners of his eyes at the virtual conference
At the same time, Microsoft, another giant that stands at the forefront of the hype meta-universe, does not seem to have any interest in using the meta-universe as a gimmick, but returns to the main battlefield of the game business, and Sony, who once complained that "the meaning of the meta-universe cannot be seen", continues to compete fiercely in the form of acquiring game companies.
As for the domestic enterprises ByteDance, Baidu, Tencent, etc., although they all drew some "big cakes" of related products last year, users obviously need to wait a lot of time if they want to really taste these cakes.
As the giants represented by Meta who promote the concept of metaverse have fallen silent, the heat of the metaverse has dissipated at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Of course, the reason why the metacosmology has come to such a point is because "consumer imagination can't keep up with companies that are at the forefront of the trend" is actually a joke. The main reason why the metaverse will cool down is because most of the Internet companies at this stage cannot come up with products that can carry this huge concept.
Those can "rub" on the meta-universe heat of the product form, VR/AR old disease is not healed, cryptocurrency, NFT is too far from the public away from speculative businessmen too close, and although the game is mature and reliable, the difficulty of entry seems to be relatively low, but to meet the requirements of the meta-universe products, but not in the industry has not been deeply cultivated in the meta-universe supporters will be able to do it for a while and a half, so in the entire game track, there are only a few game products such as Roblox with both quality and characteristics. In order to rely on the three words of the meta-universe, the icing on the cake.
However, in any case, the song eventually dispersed, and many companies, after noticing the cooling down of the meta-universe concept, did not take any measures to "save" it, but kicked away the stepping stone and began to look for the next "outlet" that could carry themselves up.
It is very coincidental that after entering 2022, in the domestic market, another concept that also seems to come out of science fiction began to quickly take the helm, constantly breaking the circle, and entering the stage of various large-scale events, taking over the market enthusiasm left over by the concept of the meta-universe in a rather smooth manner.
And this concept is the "virtual person" mentioned at the beginning of the article.
Brands have updated the image of Meng Mei, what happened?
Compared with the "metaverse", the concept of "virtual person" is much easier to understand literally, but it also stays at the level of "only can be understood ineffable", and there is no unified and clear concept, and even once there was a media fake throwing a string of definitions, and finally found that it is a shameful situation such as baidu entries that copied the medical three-dimensional model.
In fact, virtual people do not need a particularly complex definition, in short, they are the use of digital technology for activities of avatars, these avatars usually appear in the form of 2D or 3D, art style is close to cartoons or anime. In addition, although they are called virtual "people", they are not all human images, and some non-human virtual people with anthropomorphic elements also exist in the market, and even have many fans.
Unlike the meta-universe concept that lacked the support of actual products with the listing of Roblox in the "airborne" market last year, the concept of virtual people has a deep development accumulation. In fact, long before the wind of Internet technology swept the world, many companies have tried to design mascots (avatars) for brands to impress consumers and promote promotion and sales. Such as the well-known "McDonald Uncle" Ronald McDonald, The Little Nurse of Manshow Leyton, the "Michelin Fat Man" Bibden and the Cheetah of Chito, etc., and history has also proved that these avatars play a positive role in the brand communication process. A visual image with distinctive characteristics often becomes the second logo of the brand, bringing a huge improvement to the brand recognition and helping the brand stand out in the serious homogenization track.
After entering the Internet era, the commercial law of building a virtual image has not been lost. In China, when we mention the Internet giant Tencent, the first thing that comes to mind is the penguin wearing a red scarf; when mentioning the e-commerce giant JD.com, the white dog can't help but jump out of the mind - even if most people don't know its name is Joy; of course, when mentioning the JD dog, it is also natural to think of the black long-headed cat of the tmall next door...
At the same time, after entering the Internet era, the main activity scenes of brand avatars have gradually shifted from offline to online. With the blessing of a series of technologies such as animation, 3D modeling, motion capture, etc., these avatars have more diversified activities on the screen than ever before, they can make more exaggerated movements, take scenic spots and monuments around the world as background boards, more vivid than the past offline real people wearing leather jacket costume performances, more prominent character independence and personality - in short, brand avatars in the Internet era ushered in a new upgrade, they become more vivid, more refined and spread more widely and faster.
After perceiving the strong appeal of avatars, especially Japanese comic-style avatars, to the younger generation of consumers, some companies began to increase their investment in creating avatars. As mentioned at the beginning of the article, Yamaha, the developer of the VOCALOID speech synthesis engine that virtual singer Luo Tianyi relies on, is a typical example.
In fact, whether it is Luo Tianyi, or her predecessor, hatsune Mirai, a virtual idol who enjoys great influence around the world, they are essentially derivatives of VOCALOID sound sources, in other words, what really makes these virtual singers speak is the VOCALOID engine, and 2D images or 3D modeling are just decorations outside the software.
But obviously, without the external image of "Mengda", no matter how high the technical power of Yamaha's VOCALOID engine is, only the code and the operation interface cannot be quickly popularized among young people, and rely on the strong creativity of young people to obtain the momentum of sustainable development.
According to the "Virtual Digital Human Depth Industry Report" released by Qubit, the overall market size of virtual digital people in China is expected to reach 270 billion yuan in 2030. Supported by various phenomena of new consumption of Gen Z, this data has a certain degree of credibility and is quite attractive. As a result, a boom in building their own virtual people began to spread among domestic companies.
When the well-known computer brand ASUS launched the new game book, it also launched the virtual image of the product "Tianxuan Ji", and even invited the popular virtual idol group A-SOUL to act as a brand ambassador, a set of combination punches can be described as a good ball area directly hit the otaku otaku.
The main game e-sports, the new consumption preferences of young people, the black shark mobile phone, is to give the small assistant function of today's smart phone a two-dimensional image "shark sauce", although it only provides voice alarm clocks, charging animations, and some interactive content and other features that do not have any special breakthroughs, but it has still become the main reason for some users to choose black shark mobile phones, and even some users who use other brands of mobile phones are also studying various ways to transplant shark sauce to their mobile phones.
Of course, the two brands mentioned above, as consumer electronics, are themselves close to young people who pursue technology and fashion, and it is not surprising to be able to keenly perceive the preferences of young people and use them. However, in October last year, the century-old White Elephant Battery Factory also launched its own two-dimensional new image "Bai Terui" without warning, and in early February this year, Wang Laoji, a herbal tea brand that was completely incompatible with the electronic two words, also launched a two-dimensional image "LiangMei" on the video website Bilibili, and said that the image would be further carried out in station B after that.
Herbal tea brand Wang Laoji launched a virtual image
The fact that even batteries and herbal tea have "become" beautiful girls is surprising and has to be lamented that the trend of creating virtual images has unconsciously covered unexpected areas. As more and more brands "transform" into cute girls, there will only be more and more latecomers joining the ranks, and their impact on consumption and even the entertainment field is probably just beginning to unfold.
Can a virtual person who "invades" the mainstream vision really "never roll over"?
Because in order to please the Z generation group, the image of virtual people is more inclined to the Japanese manga style, which has led to a long period of time in the past, virtual people can only be active in the early B station and some ACG forums, which is regarded by the mainstream vision as a subcultural product and difficult to climb the elegant hall.
However, with the gradual marketing packaging of Internet enterprises represented by Station B in recent years, the two-dimensional culture has gradually been generalized into a new concept covering ACG content, live-action film and television content, e-sports content and trend culture. When the younger generation of netizens are not interested in all the above elements, just go to the B station to watch some funny short videos, you can also call themselves "two-dimensional", the subcultural impression of the content involved in the two-dimensional is also broken, and the things that are branded with the two-dimensional mark also begin to be regarded as a fashion trend and accepted by the mainstream vision.
With such an environmental foundation, coupled with the rise of The Z generation repeatedly emphasized above, the background of increasing influence in the market, virtual people have ushered in a tolerant and full of business opportunities, and the virtual idols who appeared in the comic show or game offline activities in the past have also begun to walk into various programs and activities held by popular video websites such as "Youai Tengmang", and even local TELEVISION stations have begun to throw olive branches to virtual people, create virtual hosts, and invite virtual singers/idols to participate in the program. Before Luo Tianyi stepped onto the stage of the Olympic Cultural Festival, the Cultural Department of the Olympic Organizing Committee also launched the East Olympic Publicity and Performance Activity "Gathering Light Night", and the focus of the promotion of this activity was "virtual interaction" and "cross-dimensional co-performance", and a total of 17 virtual anchors/idols were invited to perform on the same stage with real artists such as Zhang Weijian and Luo Wenbo, which made people shine.
In addition, mainstream video networks and local TV stations seem to have expectations for virtual people far more than just letting them act as guests as green leaves, and they have even specially produced several programs with virtual people as the core, such as iQiyi's virtual character talent competition program "Transdimensional Nova", and Jiangsu Satellite TV's animation image stage competition program "2060".
With such a huge traffic resource, coupled with live broadcasts, concerts, peripheral sales and other diversified monetization means, the development prospects of virtual people can be said to be "the future can be expected", and after perceiving this, there have also been enterprises interested in the track, and listed companies have also begun to juxtapose "virtual people" and "meta-universes" into the company's future planning.
The enthusiasm of the enterprise is like fire, but it is often also a bit blind. In fact, whether the virtual people who come out of the subcultural circle can be equated with the perfect idol may still be debatable.
As the virtual person heats up, some voices touting the virtual person also appear, and among them, the most circle-breaking sentence is the advantage of the virtual person as an idol "never rolling over".
As mentioned above, the virtual singers represented by Luo Tianyi and the virtual avatars of the enterprises, as virtual people, do not and cannot have a private life other than performing arts publicity activities, which also eliminates the situation of real idols that have a bad impact due to private life problems. Moreover, the words and deeds of such virtual people in various activity venues are designed by the team in advance, so there are few cases of gaffes or misconduct. Finally, considering that virtual people usually play on stage and are not affected by factors such as mood, illness or tiredness, it seems not too much to call them perfect idols that will not roll over.
The essence of Luo Tianyi is sound synthesis software
However, in the process of the development of virtual people, there is also a branch, that is, the virtual anchor / live lord represented by the virtual tubing master trip love that began to be active in 2016, and the virtual people such as Hatsune Mirai and Luo Tianyi, who are data from the inside out, the virtual anchor / live master is jokingly called "leather jacket people" by fans, this is because although they show people in a virtual image, under the image, there is the existence of the actor of "middle man", in other words, although they are also counted as virtual people, But in fact, it is essentially a group of real people who carry out the "holster" of the avatar.
In the process of such virtual person activities, vivid cases prove the inseparability of "middle people" and external virtual images. Whether it is the "Trip Love Incident" in which the company to which Trip Love belongs tries to replace a new voice actor for Trip Love, or the frequent replacement of people in the domestic virtual anchor project "New Branch Lady" leads to the rapid consumption of IP value, it is emphasized that when people pay attention to the virtual anchor /live host, they are not as concerned about the virtual image of the character as if they were concerned about Hatsune Mirai or Luo Tianyi, but are more inclined to regard the virtual image of the virtual anchor / live host and the inner voice actor as a whole.
However, in this way, the positioning of such virtual people has returned to the category of traditional live actors, because although the avatars provide an umbrella for the private lives of voice actors, their words and deeds in daily activities still depend on the quality of voice actors.
Unfortunately, compared with traffic stars, the threshold of the virtual anchor industry, which has no restrictions on appearance and does not need to participate in the draft, seems to be lower, which leads to the fact that the business ability of many anchors is not of a high level, and the gaffe situation will not be less than that of real artists.
In 2022, when everyone was still immersed in the festive atmosphere on the third day of the Chinese New Year, the well-known virtual anchor of Station B, Seven Nana7mi, had to apologize to the audience for the previous improper speech, which seemed to give a loud slap to the fans who said that the virtual person "never rolled over".
Of course, the concept of virtual people is still a fairly young concept, and there is no fixed number of branches it can create and which branches will become mainstream. When "Luo Tianyi" appears more and more in the mainstream field of vision and attracts the attention of enterprises, enterprises should also understand the various chaos that the industry is stirring up, especially the crisis of rice circle culture that may be triggered by "leather jacket people", and the vulgarization and vulgarization of live/performance content due to the low quality of "middle people".
However, as virtual people continue to break the circle and gain the approval of the official media, the corresponding regulatory policies will also be on the way on horseback. With official supervision, it is entirely possible for virtual people to develop in a healthy and positive direction, and this is what the majority of virtual people fans are happy to see.
After all, the young people of Generation Z still want to stay with the virtual people they call "boyfriends" and "girlfriends" for a long time.