[NEWS IN FOCUS] Virtual YouTubers are taking the internet by storm

Livestreamers known by virtual avatars, known as VTubers, are gaining popularity in Korea. These virtual personas attract millions of viewers by streaming games, sharing anecdotes and providing advice under a virtual persona.

Isegye Idol is a six-member virtual girl group who debuted in 2021, organized by YouTuber and Twitch streamer Oh Young-taek. [WAK ENTERTAINMENT]

A livestreamer who goes by online moniker Myong is devoted to her full-time job with 28,400 subscribers on YouTube. What stands out about her is that she does not show herself during her streams. Instead, she is active under her virtual avatar, a young girl drawn in a Japanese animation style with big blue eyes and long, forget-me-not sky blue hair, often appearing in her school uniform.

Myong streams videos of herself playing variety of games, and sometimes shares anecdotes of her daily life — all under the veil of her virtual avatar, of course.

“My entire schedule revolves around my broadcast,” Myong told the Korea JoongAng Daily in an email interview. “During the day, I draw the illustrations needed for the broadcast and for reels. Then I discuss what to upload with my editor, prep for other details and then turn on the livestream around 7 p.m.”

She streams for around five hours on average, but many of her broadcasts last well beyond midnight.

“I often lose track of time when I talk to people online,” she says.

Another virtual streamer active under online alias YooWooYang, has over 41,600 subscribers and is fully committed to her job. She streams for eight to 12 hours a day, talking to her fans about new game releases and shares bits of her daily life.

"Many of virtual streamers have a particular concept or persona they stick to under their avatars," she said. "However, that's not for me. I'm just being myself when I'm live in front of the camera."

“Virtual” is a new trend among young people nowadays, with virtual K-pop groups, singers, YouTubers and streamers gaining millions of viewers on various streaming platforms. Myong is just one example.

A virtual YouTuber who goes by the online alias Myong streams as her avatar and has over 28,000 subscribers on YouTube. [MYONG YOUTUBE]

Another is virtual K-pop act “Iseye Idol,” or “Isedol” for short, a six-member girl group that debuted in August 2021. The group is directed and owned by YouTuber and Twitch streamer Oh Young-taek, better known by his online alias, “Woowakgood.” Each member of the group is active as a virtual streamer as well; they have an average of 360,000 YouTube subscribers.

The members upload various types of content, from game broadcasts and song covers to everyday anecdotes and advice on how to survive as a VTuber.

The group became well-established enough to collaborate with Kakao Webtoon, where members are featured as the protagonists of the series “Magical Girl Isegye Idol.”

Isedol has released four digital singles so far which have all hit 1 million streams in their first 24 hours of release. The group has been named to local music streamer Melon’s hall of fame, the only virtual girl group to do so.

Those who were caught peering over animations and subculture games, or titles featuring Japanese anime-style girl characters, were once laughed at or called out as otaku, which is Japan's term for a person with obsessive interests. But Kim Sang-kyun, a professor who teaches metaverse management at Kyung Hee University's Graduate School of Business, believes that the realm of mainstream content has expanded to include such minority cultures.

“The extent of what is evaluated as content is expanding,” Kim said. “What was once considered as otaku, such games of subculture genres and virtual avatars are now being incorporated into the mainstream culture.”

Younger generations who grew up in the world of smart devices, the metaverse and the Covid-19 pandemic are used to digital narratives and learn quickly to adopt to them, according to elementary school teacher Hwang Yun-ji.

“In my class, 11 out of 24 students are familiar with virtual trends such as VTubers,” Hwang said. “And eight out of 24 enjoy playing metaverse games such as Robolox. Even during class, I utilize metaverse education platform called ‘Co Spaces Edu’ to teach, where students can map out their own metaverse space within the platform, where they can organize and share content about what they’ve learned. Some students even go beyond to create a metaverse game based on that.”

VTuber Myong’s primary user base is composed of Korean males in their teens and 20s, followed by Japanese viewers, she says.

Market searcher MarketWatch expects the global VTuber market to grow some 971 percent to 17 trillion won ($13 billion) in 2030 from 2021’s 2.8 trillion won.

The popularity of virtual influencers, on the other hand, is waning in Korea. One such character named Rozy, created by Naver Webtoon’s affiliate production studio, Locus-X, debuted with a bang in 2021. It was speculated, at the time, that she might replace her human competitors entirely.

With the perfect physiques — perfect smiles, faces, legs and arms — virtual humans could stay young forever. And unlike human celebrities, virtual ones are completely under human developers' control and don't need to worry about scandals tainting their reputations.

Recently, however, such influencers seemed to have drifted out of the consumer eye, according to an industry report from Samil PwC.

“There is a definite limit [for such influencers] to earn trust from consumers because they are virtual and preplanned — they cannot as actively reach out to their consumers to promote their brand,” the report said. “Unlike human influencers, there is no ‘life’ or storytelling beyond their picture-perfect faces, thus failing to attract the fandom crucial to the revenue rise in the influencer market.”

BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]