Wednesday, 1 April, 2020 UTC
Summary
Virtual celebrity landscape update & analysis
Last year, we witnessed the virtual celebrity trend starting to bloom. As 2020 arrived, we want to share with you some updates about how the industry is doing so far.
Who is still growing fast and what is their secret in growth? Is YouTube still the only platform going strong? Which talent agencies are thriving? For those who haven’t read the previous postings, check them out to better understand this article.
Related article 1: ‘How to Become a Virtual YouTuber/Influencer’
Related article 2: ‘How Many Virtual Celebrities Are There?’
Related article 3: ‘Digital Human is Becoming Prevalent’
Is the Virtual Celebrity Industry Still on the Rise?
To put it simply, YES. We have found evidence that the industry is still on the rise. The total views of related videos and VTuber subscribers have constantly been increasing throughout 2019. In 2019, the number of total subscribers and the total views each increased by 28% and 99%.
Sum of YouTube Top 20 virtual celebrities subscribers & total views in 2019 *Based on Social Blade detailed statistics of each channel — A.I.Channel, A.I.Games, Kaguya Luna, Hatsune Miku, Mirai Akari, Siro, Nekomiya Hinata, Hime&Hina, Tsukino Mito, makeUmove, Moemi&Yomemi, Himawari Honma, Shirakami Fubuki, Domyoji Cocoa, YuNi, Game Club Project, Natsumi Moe, Alganzi, Beilene&Sifir Esirer, Sasaki SakuNote that the growth rate for each channel has been consistently positive for the entire year. As the graph is solely based on YouTube ranking, we believe that the growth is faster considering other rapidly growing channels such as Bilibili and Weibo.
Growing Virtual Celebrity Community
More rookie virtual celebrities are gaining popularity resulting in an increased number of celebrities with more than 100K subscribers. As of Dec 31st, 2019, our updated landscape map includes 170 celebrities compared to the previous one with 112.
Created by team Hyprsense by listing up and gathering subscriber information. Each circle of the channels is relative to the number of subscribers.While some are China-based new foundings, the majority are ones that just reached 100K in four months, located in the 100–200K section. This indicates that the virtual celebrity community is growing stronger from the bottom.
About half of the celebrities (54 out of 112) have marked more than 20% growth compared to four months ago among the 112 channels that were previously on our radar. With 58 newly added celebrities, these rapid uprising channels make up the majority of the virtual celebrity community. Best of all, we saw many unique virtual celebrities thriving, setting all new records!
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What’s the Secret of the Growing Channels?
So how are these channels still managing to grow fast? What differs them from other virtual celebrity channels? As we stated in the previous article, the answer still seems to be in talent agencies and China-based fans. However, another trend also arose — focusing on other platforms such as TikTok.
1. Talent Agencies
Over half of the newly added channels and fast-growing channels are associated with talent agencies. Nijisanji and Hololive by themselves make up a big chunk of the share, each holding 28% and 17%. The same rule applies to the +20% growth rated channels. Among the 54 +20% growth celebrities, Nijisanji and Hololive each hold 43% and 13%.
What are they doing so differently? While researching those uprising channels, we realized that Nijisanji & Hololive associates utilize the agency system and hold collaboration streaming with other associates, introducing each other to their own fans. With similar 2D anime look and content, they seem to share the audience base, drawing their fans to become other associates’ fans with the minimum effort. This technique helps out beginner VTubers to obtain subscribers in a short amount of time.
(left) Mito streaming with other Nijisanji associates (right) Fubuki streaming with other Hololive associatesAnother interesting thing about talent agencies is that their fan-base can be different. While Nijisanji associates mainly act on YouTube, Hololive associates tend to be more active on Bilibili. While the key audience of Nijisanji associates is in Japan, that of Hololive associates is spread to the US, SE Asia, and Europe.
(left) Mito’s audience (right) Fubuki’s audience on Nox influencer2. China-based Fans
As we noticed in the last article, there are major Chinese channels that are operated in Bilibili/Weibo. Half of the celebrities with over 500K subscribers are China-based and some only act on China. Yousa and Momo are great examples with over 1M followers. Some Hololive associates are strategically streaming mainly in Bilibili to obtain Chinese fans — Fubuki, Aqua, and Matsuri are those Hololive cases.
3. TikTok & Other Platforms
That being said, Bilibili and Weibo are not the only expanding platforms. There are virtual celebrities starting to pop up on Twitch, TikTok, and Showroom as well. The most noticeable platform is TikTok led by virtual influencers such as FN Meka and Qai Qai, each with 772K and 671K.
Like with most of the TikTok contents, they mainly create short dancing and singing content, immersed in the real-life world. It is very exciting how there are major virtual celebrities that are mainly on TikTok — it proves that the virtual celebrity community is growing internationally while remaining a healthy ecosystem.
(left) FN Meka (right) Qai QaiAs the heat of TikTok continues, virtual celebrities from YouTube/Instagram are also diving into the platform to gain generation Z with the platform-optimized content utilizing TikTok’s special editing effects. And the effort seems to be paying off — Kizuna AI and Momo now have 734K followers and 325K followers and other VTubers are starting to follow the trends to reach their younger demographics. We believe that the developing TikTok virtual celebrity scene will produce the need for accessible body tracking and mobile tracking.
(left) Kizuna AI (right) MomoWho are the Fastest Growing Virtual Celebrities?
Among all the virtual celebrities, some gained their popularity faster than others, easily surpassing a 100% growth rate. We want to share some celebrities worth paying attention to.
[Korean VTubers] Alganzi, makeUmove, GreatMoonAroma
(156%, 60%, 10793% growth rate)
Alganzi is a Korean VTuber in a 3D devil face that usually introduces interesting video clips of gossip/issue and explains well-used English expressions in the video. With her unforgettable devil face and well-done curation, her channel is very educational and fun to watch.
(left) Alganzi (center) makeUmove (right) GreatMoonAromaNot only her, but there are also some other Korean VTubers on the rise. MakeUmove imported his cute anime character into a VR rhythm game ‘Beat Saber’ and plays songs on high difficulty level maps. GreatMoonAroma mainly plays VRChat with his character gaining global popularity. These Korean VTuber examples show the potential possibility of the unconventional look and content type of virtual celebrities.
[Virtual Influencers] Knox Frost, Imma, Binxie (??%, 127%, 129% growth rate)
On the other hand, virtual influencers are also leaping up — meet Knox Frost, Imma, and Binxie. Despite the fact that Knox Frost’s account is private, he currently has over 1.1M followers on Instagram making him one of the top 10 virtual celebrities in a year — his first reveal was Feb 2019.
While Imma and Binxie’s followers just turned 100K, it is very impressive how they are catching up to others so fast. Binxie started her Instagram account last May, 7 months ago, and now has 101K followers.
(left) Knox Frost (center) Imma (right) BinxieWith human-like CGI and personality, they seem to satisfy their fans’ fantasy of a dream celebrity with tasteful photos. The secret is in utilizing the Instagram tag system to accelerate their exposure to their target audience. Where they go, which brand they wear, and who they meet are carefully curated to connect with the real world.
We hope that this article was helpful for gauging how the virtual celebrity industry has been doing and predicting future prospects as well!
It is a very exciting moment for us to see how AR technology and image-driven SNS are pushing virtual celebrity trends. As the trends spread into a broader audience, we know that this is merely the start of a new era of virtual beings.
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https://medium.com/media/1e1f2ee7654748bb938735cbca6f0fd3/hrefIs the Virtual Celebrity Industry Still on the Rise in 2020? was originally published in AR/VR Journey: Augmented & Virtual Reality Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.