Vtuber ‘hosts’ sleep stream with just her animated character model

polygon.com:

Generally speaking, “subathons,” marathon streams where content creators stream nonstop for days on end, are strenuous affairs. Although the events can help rack up subscriptions, streaming every day and even as they sleep at night, is a ton of work. Luckily, one streamer, Ironmouse has figured out a clever workaround: Instead of streaming her actual body sleeping, she simply leaves an avatar on screen.

She can do this because she’s a virtual YouTuber (Vtuber), a term for a content creator who uses a virtual model of a character to stream, instead of showing their actual face with a camera. Ironmouse’s design has pink and purple hair, with horns. The adorable demon-looking character streams on Twitch for an agency called VShojo and is known for her karaoke streams and lewd sense of humor. As the person behind Ironmouse moves their head and talks, the character on screen will mirror their movements.

In addition to having their characters on screen, Vtubers will often layer objects over their models to change environments. Previously, some Vtubers have layered over images to make it look like the characters are in different outfits or sets, like a hot tub. Ironmouse however, made a bed for her character. So when it came time to sleep, instead of showing her actual body sleeping in bed, she just left the character there. Meanwhile, on stream, her friends are able to chat and stream videos, like anime, for viewers to watch.

It’s a genius way to deal with an arduous affair. At the time of publication, Ironmouse was on day five of her stream. When Ludwig Ahgren undertook his record-breaking subathon, the streamer just kept a camera fixed on him in a tiny race car bed all night. Now, Ironmouse can simply just go to sleep and