VTubers have reached their inevitable conclusion

polygon.com:

Twitch has always allowed for various forms of expression, so it was no surprise when VTubing found a home on the platform, quickly gaining popularity among English-speaking audiences in 2019. Since then, the novelty of avatar-based content may have worn off, but the format has stuck around. And VTubing agencies, which continue to introduce new talents and offer one of the more financially secure methods of pursuing this sort of content, are still holding on in an attempt to harness new talent.

VTubing exploded onto the wider North American and European markets when Cover Corporation launched the English branch of Hololive Production in 2020. Hololive’s English debut saw the introduction of long-standing talents in the English community, such as the extremely popular Gawr Gura (the most subscribed-to Hololive talent to date) and Ninomae Ina’nis. Even high-profile content creators like Pokimane pivoted toward using digital avatars weeks after Hololive’s first generation of English talents debuted. Brands, too: Remember the Tony the Tiger VTuber in August of 2022?

Many creators that jumped on the trend have since stopped using their avatars, but at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a large increase in VTubers on Twitch and other streaming platforms, like YouTube, as models and equipment became more accessible to the general public. Twitch has since gone on to highlight a wide variety of VTubers through its VTuber Takeover promotion, which most recently ran in August. Twitch also reported that VTubing-related content on the platform shot up by some 350% between January and August 2022. Despite this, some have argued that the VTubing bubble has all but burst.

“I do feel that VTubing has become less novel as the