What the thing is
VTubers are online entertainers using computer-generated virtual avatars.
Where it came from
They originated in Japan in the mid-2010s. Kizuna AI launched in late 2016 using the phrase ‘virtual YouTuber’.
There were precursors. In 2010 the visual novel maker Nitroplus began uploading videos of an animated 3D version of its mascot Super Sonico, and in 2012 Weathernews debuted a Vocaloid-styled character, Weatheroid Type A Airi, on a 24-hour weather live stream. The indie software FaceRig, launched by crowdfunding in 2014, was the first suite to let people run live avatars at home through face motion capture, and Live2D support for 2D avatars arrived a year later.
Kizuna AI was created by the production company Activ8 and voiced by Nozomi Kasuga. Within ten months she had over two million subscribers. Her popularity sparked a VTuber trend in Japan: between May and mid-July 2018 the number of active VTubers rose from 2,000 to 4,000, and specialised agencies such as Nijisanji and Hololive were set up to promote them. Nijisanji helped popularise Live2D models over the earlier focus on 3D, and a shift from edited videos towards livestreaming. The trend then spread abroad through anime and manga fandom, with agency branches in China, South Korea, Indonesia and India, plus English-language branches. In January 2020 there were over 10,000 VTubers.
What it gets right
It decouples performance from physical presence. It makes avatar design, motion capture and real-time rendering into accessible, repeatable production tools.
An avatar is typically animated with a webcam and software that maps the streamer’s motions, expressions and mouth movements onto a two- or three-dimensional model. Live2D is typically used to rig 2D models built from drawn textures, and VRoid Studio can be used to make 3D ones. Commissioned models can cost as high as US$2,000, depending on detail. Some VTubers, known as “PNGTubers”, instead use sprites with different frames for different emotions rather than a rigged model.
The avatar also gives some performers a layer between themselves and the audience. VTubers are not bound by physical limitations, and some, particularly from marginalized communities, use avatars for personal comfort and safety; transgender VTubers may use them to reflect their preferred presentation. Many portray a kayfabe character, as in professional wrestling. The wrestler Mace, who began streaming as a VTuber in 2021, called the two professions “literally the same thing”.
What it gets wrong
It misleads by naming itself after YouTube when its practice lives across Niconico, Twitch and Bilibili—and its origins predate the term.
The format has costs for the people inside it. Major VTubers are often employed by talent agencies, with business models influenced by Japanese idol agencies; the agency often owns the character and its assets. A performer who cannot take the rights to a character when leaving may return as an independent under another persona, with the past identity treated as an open secret. Performers are called nakanohito, “the person inside”, and online harassment aimed at avatars has become a structural problem. In September 2020 Anycolor, the company behind Nijisanji, created a team to counsel victims and take legal action, after Hololive’s Mano Aloe retired following only two weeks of activity because of harassment. In Japan, precedents have begun to hold that when viewers equate the avatar with the performer, acts against the avatar can infringe the performer’s personal rights, and a 2022 Tokyo District Court ruling showed performers and agencies successfully requesting disclosure of harassers’ identities.
Why it matters now
Because it reveals how platform-native performance evolved: not as escapism, but as a scalable, modular, cross-platform labour format.
Is it worth your time
Yes—if you need to understand how identity, labour and platform infrastructure converged in online entertainment after 2016.
The money is measurable. In August 2020, seven of the ten largest Super Chat earners of all time on YouTube were VTubers, led by Hololive’s Kiryu Coco at roughly ¥85 million. YouTube’s May 2025 report on virtual creators said VTuber videos had averaged over 50 billion views a year since 2022, and that 16 of the 20 channels with the largest all-time Super Chat revenue were VTuber channels. Companies use them too: Kizuna AI promoted the iPhone XS at a SoftBank event in 2018.
