This is like a shadow puppet stage. On the curtain, the shadow is performing hard. No one knows who is behind it.
Editor’s note: This article comes from WeChat public account “Hedgehog Commune” (ID: ciweigongshe ), Author Zhao Siqiang, editor Shi Can .
You will see three main characters in this article, they all have dual identities. The dual identity of each person will be carefully hidden in many ways while the article is being carried out, so that you cannot easily find them through the Internet.
They are not big stars, let alone spies or criminals, but when talking to them about what they are doing, they must always pay attention not to reveal their identity, which is an important criterion in their work.
They are among the virtual anchors. Two concepts are involved here, one is the virtual anchor, and the other is the person in the middle.
With the maturity of motion compensation technology and the rise of platforms such as live broadcast and video websites, new variants have appeared under the category of virtual idols. In foreign countries, people call them Vtuber. In China, you can Call them “virtual anchors” or virtual UP hosts.
A large number of Vtubers have emerged in the past two years
Different from the original virtual singers such as Hatsune Miku and Luo Tianyi, they do not rely on vocal synthesis technology. These virtual anchors are more like a doll with a costume in an amusement park. Behind this virtual image There is a real person playing, giving this character a soul. This person is called the person in the middle.
As part of the two-dimensional culture, these virtual anchors often have a very “two-dimensional” setting, such as “artificial intelligence”, from another planet, or a parallel universe. In order to maintain this setting, people in China must not wantonly break the dimension wall and reveal their true identity. They must maintain these beautiful lies with the fans in a professional manner, which makes them and ordinary voice actors (voice actors) have huge difference.
In this case, few people are willing to talk about this topic publicly. The company that operates the virtual anchor does not want anyone to pierce this layer.Window paper. Fear comes from the unknown, and they don’t know what the impact of exposing the people in the world is. Some of them have also signed confidentiality agreements, and once they say too much, they will even bear legal responsibility.
The Hedgehog Commune (ID: ciweigongshe) contacted the three of them through various channels, but there were still many restrictions in the interview. They don’t talk about their work and life outside of the people in them, they don’t disclose too much information about the company and their peers, and they can’t let others guess their role. When discussing some characters’ particularly obvious identity, they suddenly stopped sharing and asked themselves, “Can this be said?”
This is like a shadow puppet stage. On the curtain, the shadow is performing hard. No one knows who is behind it.
I am it, it is me
Zhuang Buchun was originally a “omnivorous” UP host on station B. Games, ghosts, animations … have done all kinds of works. After slowly accumulating some fans, someone jokingly called “Pure sister”, he simply asked a friend to draw a female character.
In mid-2018, he came up with an idea: Everyone calls me a “pure sister” for so long. If you really make a pure sister, how will the audience react?
So he collaborated with the Virtual Dimension Research Institute, the team that launched the first virtual UP host Xiaoxi in China, and spent five months to create a 3D image of “pure sister”. On October 24, the virtual anchor “Xylose Pure” posted the first video on Zhuang’s impure account and officially “debuted”.
During the process of searching for the people in the process, the people in the course of the appointment were separated from the cooperation because of the time coordination. He had no choice but to release recruitment information to find new people, and met the current “xylose pure” people, which is now the “pure sister”.
Pure sister is a professional voice actor and runs a studio by herself. When choosing someone, seiyuu is often the first choice. They have a nice voice, they understand acting, and they are familiar with second-dimensional culture.
But it is not easy to find the right person. In the process of preparing to launch a virtual anchor, the person setting is the most important part. The person setting of the role is similar to the character of the voice actor itself, which is ideal.
“The most important thing for a virtual anchor is to embody an interesting soul. If it is a show, it is very unnatural to watch.” Zhuang Buchun told the Hedgehog Commune.
During the running-in process of Zhuang Impure and Pure Sister, Zhuang Impure found that some of the settings originally made for Xylose Pure were inconsistent with Pure Sister himself, so he overthrew the reconstruction, and some of the advantages of Pure Sister herself Such as singing, live broadcasting, is also devoted to the entire character.
It is common for people to set up “eating books” (overthrowing the original setting) in virtual anchors, and almost every virtual anchor will end up being dyed by the person himself. This also makes the boundary between the two more and more blurred.
Being a voice actorWhen Xiao Yu received the invitation from a virtual anchor team for the first time, the information obtained was only a simple role setting. I hope that my personality is lively and cheerful, but nothing else.
“It was just a shell at the beginning, only the general direction, and how to know it after the interpretation. I filled a lot of things myself, and slowly formed the current state.” Xiaoyu said, “the whole There are a lot of things that can be played on my own. As an actor, I find it very interesting. I poured too much of my own stuff into it.
When doing the dubbing work, the character, lines and actions of each character are set. The voice actors need to restore and present. “The perfect dubbing is that others will not notice you, but pay attention to the character itself. But the person doing it is different. I am one of the creators.” Xiao Yu said.
When the running-in level was not enough in the early stage, Xiao Yu still acted like a voice actor, playing a role according to the Taiwanese version. When the live broadcast began, and direct communication with fans, Xiao Yu suddenly felt that she was no longer herself. ” From the moment the live broadcast starts, you can perform it as her, or you can’t say it, but you are her. “
The virtual anchor hosted at the launch conference of Station B of China.
Xiao Yu can do it now. As soon as the live broadcast starts, she will naturally enter this role immediately. She no longer sees this image separately from herself, but sees her and herself as a whole. “It’s like an avatar, and at that time I transformed, and what I showed was what she should show.”
This avatar also releases many emotions that Xiao Yu can’t usually release. “I’m a social person, I have to think a lot about talking and doing things, but this role is innocent, so I don’t have to think about it that much. This gives me a feeling that I can put on a mask to release myself more innocent.
Her friend Akin is the one in another virtual anchor. She was brought to the rescue. Prior to her, this role originally had another person, but due to various reasons, and this role is to do a live broadcast, the operating company was introduced to find Akin, hoping to let her be the person in this role .
At that time, the virtual idol group that this character belongs to has been doing for more than a year, but Akin did not know the role he was going to play before. The staff probably told her about the role setting and showed her Some information, the next day, Akin entered the live broadcast room with this role.
The original character image tag was Ao Jiao, Gao Leng. She could barely stick to the previous few times, and then she became more and more like herself. In the process, she had a lot of fun. Every day, she was thinking about how to make this thing more fun, and to do things that allow others to take on expression packages, such as heartbeat, seaweed dance.
With a virtual mask, Akin did a lot of things that couldn’t be done in life and work. “Every time I go to live broadcast, I want to go live again, so happy.” Once She followed the whole group to meet fans at the exhibition, because she was too happy, and the operator also proactively increased her time.
“I will be more comfortable with strangers, I will understand what they need, and then show them what the audience wants to see.”
Sometimes the livestream ends, and the staff will tell Akin that she has never seen someone like her who can stay alive for four hours.
“In fact, I have reached the limit,” said Akin.
“Doing this gave me more space to understand myself. While I created a lot of things for him, it was also my process of digging myself. Now it may be limited, but looking back now, what I have I gave those things that were beyond Taiben, and I made that image more colorful and vivid. “Xiaoyu said.
It’s it, I’m me
It’s not all good to be integrated with a virtual character.
Xiao Yu has a tangled emotion about her role. When she sees others praise this role, she feels that she is not bragging about herself. “When she praises her, I think it is my duty and I should let Everyone likes it. “But when others scold the role, she will transfer these emotions to herself.
When she first started playing games on the live broadcast, someone scolded her for playing vegetables. Xiao Yu, who had never experienced so many negative reviews, was uncomfortable. It’s on me. “After the broadcast that day, Xiaoyu went home and wept bitterly, and took time off to return to her hometown for a few days.
“When I understand a series of rules for Chinese people, sometimes I want to end sooner, and sometimes I never want to end it.” Chunjie said.
Although these virtual characters are not much different from themselves, they are not themselves after all. In terms of speech and manners, all of them must remember that they represent an entire team behind them.
Compared with dubbing, the person doing it has more freedom, but it is not completely free. “If it was my own live broadcast, I would be responsible for myself, but as a pure xylose live broadcast, I would be responsible for all the people behind this image.”
Linked live broadcast between domestic virtual anchors and Japanese virtual anchors
The feelings of the people in
for this image are completely different from dubbing a character in a work. In the daily video content and live broadcast, the people who really have an emotional connection with the fans are the people behind this virtual image.
“The virtual anchor is a virtual image played by the person in Zhong, this is a whole. It is not the person in Zhong, nor the layer of skin, but the two together.” Zhuang Buchun said.
But helplessly, the feedback received by fans and Zhongren is different. The emotional projection of fans is the virtual image, not the Zhongren. “When one day I changed my identity and appeared in front of the fans, they don’t know you, it’s very uncomfortable.” Chunjie said.
Pure sister always tells herself: “You are you, she is her. If you don’t distinguish, you may wait until you really leave, it will be more painful.”
With this avatar, people in China can get a lot of recognition that I can’t get, but this kind of recognition is like a chronic poison. The longer the time of invasion, the more painful it is.
A person in the middle told the Hedgehog Commune that she had been in a tangled state. Should she dedicate herself to this role, because she would sooner or later be separated from this role. After returning to the individual, all the achievements of the virtual idol, It is no longer related to the people in China.
“I definitely hope that more people will pay attention to it. But I am very divided in this aspect. It has nothing to do with how many fans and how many fans it has. Its popularity is its popularity. My Heat is my heat, and these are two things. “Xiaoyu said.
Sometimes someone will hear Xiaoyu’s voice, just go to her Weibo private message and say that her voice is very similar to someone. Xiaoyu can only pretend to be stupid, either don’t reply, or say she doesn’t know or heard it.
“Virtual idol is a deductive act. In order to maintain the setting and maintain the integrity of the character, it is always good not to expose the person.” Zhuang Buchun said.
The core group for virtual anchors is users who like the two-dimensional “paper people” themselves. They want to interact with the virtual characters and cultivate feelings with them. When the real people intervene, they are given this opportunity. At the same time, for these fans, “whether or not there is a clear boundary with the three dimensions and whether there is a sense of virtuality” is also an important judging factor. Once the virtual image is “contaminated” with too much realism, it will lose powder.
After a linked live broadcast ended, Xiaoyu and the person in the opposite did not take off the service and looked at the other person’s virtual image to chat. After learning that the other person had studied dubbing in Beijing before, he gave up returning to his hometown and now uses this. The avatar is broadcast live every day.
In this way, they talked about their real world things in a virtual identity. After the end, they still don’t know who the other party is.
I leave it, it leaves me
Xiao Yu has agreed with the team that if the number of fans exceeds a certain number, the information of the person in the public will be announced. Now she doesn’t remember what that number is, in short, it hasn’t been reached yet.
This is another embarrassing current situation of domestic virtual anchors. The volume of the entire industry is very small, and no virtual idol is known to the extent that the people who are announced can cause great repercussions.
In August, the world ’s leading virtual anchor “trip love”, due to the operating company’s intention to weaken the appearance of the people in the first generation, caused strong dissatisfaction among fans, the trip’s Youtube account, B station account have different degrees powder. But at present, there are still 3 million followers on Youtube, and the number of domestic virtual anchor fans cannot reach even a fraction of it.
Trip Love
The Hedgehog Commune has learned that most people in the country are not full-time. This means that every virtual idol has no way to guarantee the continued and stable content survival. The time of live broadcast and production of video depends on the work schedule of the person in the team.
Although he has fun, he always treats the person as a part-time job. “My purpose of coming to Beijing is to dub. This is the reason why I am here. It is impossible to give up what I originally wanted because of other things.”
After saving the live broadcast, the other party is very satisfied with Akin’s performance. I hope that we can cooperate for a long time, and set the live broadcast time to three times a week. Each live broadcast, A Jin has to take subway line 6 for more than an hour from Chaoyang District to Haidian District, which takes up a lot of her time. Later, the live broadcast was changed to twice a week, and the time was reduced from four hours to two hours.
The other party said that if you find the right person, you will replace Akin, but you never find the right one. The time will be longer, this character is more and more like Akin, and it is harder to find someone .
The live content will change every time. I have tried playing games, singing, and dancing. Every time Akin tries to cooperate, but the effect is not obvious. When the live room was the most active, it was during the draw, but when the draw was over, it was quiet again.
She remembered that when the live broadcast room reached about tens of thousands of fans, the change was not too big.
A practitioner tells Hedgehog Commune that some companies spend money to investI am a virtual idol, a virtual anchor, but the people in power do not understand this thing, and still operate according to past operating experience. At the same time, the project needs to be profitable quickly.
More importantly, the domestic audience of virtual anchors is still very small. Core fans are divided up by more mature virtual anchors in Japan, and people outside the circle may simply not know that such a form exists.
Zhuang Buchun has been trying to make the image of “xylose pure” out of the circle, and made many attempts on video topic selection, but later found that the content that can be updated steadily for a long period of time is basically limited to games, chat, It is difficult to make great breakthroughs in these categories of music.
“B station is not just a second dimension now, we want to try to draw some subconscious people who like this form into this circle.” Chunjie said.
Like being the UP host and anchor of a real person, the person in the middle should also consider what kind of characteristics to give to the role, maintain their own personality, characteristics, and three views. These basic requirements will not be lowered because they are virtual images. It will even get higher.
In the eyes of partners, virtual anchors are not much different from real people. What they value is still the number of clicks and followers, which is very unfriendly to virtual anchors who are very niche.
Akin’s project has been stalled for a long time. Now, operating companies occasionally look for Akin, but they are no longer in this role.
“I feel a bit pity,” Akin said.
(All names in the text are pseudonyms)
It’s not all good to be integrated with a virtual character.
Xiao Yu has a tangled emotion about her role. When she sees others praise this role, she feels that she is not bragging about herself. “When she praises her, I think it is my duty and I should let Everyone likes it. “But when others scold the role, she will transfer these emotions to herself.
When she first started playing games on the live broadcast, someone scolded her for playing vegetables. Xiao Yu, who had never experienced so many negative reviews, was uncomfortable. It’s on me. “After the broadcast that day, Xiaoyu went home and wept bitterly, and took time off to return to her hometown for a few days.
“When I understand a series of rules for Chinese people, sometimes I want to end sooner, and sometimes I never want to end it.” Chunjie said.
Although these virtual characters are not much different from themselves, they are not themselves after all. In terms of speech and manners, all of them must remember that they represent an entire team behind them.
Compared with dubbing, the person doing it has more freedom, but it is not completely free. “If it was my own live broadcast, I would be responsible for myself, but as a pure xylose live broadcast, I would be responsible for all the people behind this image.”
Linked live broadcast between domestic virtual anchors and Japanese virtual anchors
The feelings of the people in
for this image are completely different from dubbing a character in a work. In the daily video content and live broadcast, the people who really have an emotional connection with the fans are the people behind this virtual image.
“The virtual anchor is a virtual image played by the person in Zhong, this is a whole. It is not the person in Zhong, nor the layer of skin, but the two together.” Zhuang Buchun said.
But helplessly, the feedback received by fans and Zhongren is different. The emotional projection of fans is the virtual image, not the Zhongren. “When one day I changed my identity and appeared in front of the fans, they don’t know you, it’s very uncomfortable.” Chunjie said.
Pure sister always tells herself: “You are you, she is her. If you don’t distinguish, you may wait until you really leave, it will be more painful.”
With this avatar, people in China can get a lot of recognition that I can’t get, but this kind of recognition is like a chronic poison. The longer the time of invasion, the more painful it is.
A person in the middle told the Hedgehog Commune that she had been in a tangled state. Should she dedicate herself to this role, because she would sooner or later be separated from this role. After returning to the individual, all the achievements of the virtual idol, It is no longer related to the people in China.
“I definitely hope that more people will pay attention to it. But I am very divided in this aspect. It has nothing to do with how many fans and how many fans it has. Its popularity is its popularity. My Heat is my heat, and these are two things. “Xiaoyu said.
Sometimes someone will hear Xiaoyu’s voice, just go to her Weibo private message and say that her voice is very similar to someone. Xiaoyu can only pretend to be stupid, either don’t reply, or say she doesn’t know or heard it.
“Virtual idol is a deductive act. In order to maintain the setting and maintain the integrity of the character, it is always good not to expose the person.” Zhuang Buchun said.
The core group for virtual anchors is users who like the two-dimensional “paper people” themselves. They want to interact with the virtual characters and cultivate feelings with them. When the real people intervene, they are given this opportunity. At the same time, for these fans, “whether or not there is a clear boundary with the three dimensions and whether there is a sense of virtuality” is also an important judging factor. Once the virtual image is “contaminated” with too much realism, it will lose powder.
After a linked live broadcast ended, Xiaoyu and the person in the opposite did not take off the service and looked at the other person’s virtual image to chat. After learning that the other person had studied dubbing in Beijing before, he gave up returning to his hometown and now uses this. The avatar is broadcast live every day.
In this way, they talked about their real world things in a virtual identity. After the end, they still don’t know who the other party is.
I leave it, it leaves me
Xiao Yu has agreed with the team that if the number of fans exceeds a certain number, the information of the person in the public will be announced. Now she doesn’t remember what that number is, in short, it hasn’t been reached yet.
This is another embarrassing current situation of domestic virtual anchors. The volume of the entire industry is very small, and no virtual idol is known to the extent that the people who are announced can cause great repercussions.
In August, the world ’s leading virtual anchor “trip love”, due to the operating company’s intention to weaken the appearance of the people in the first generation, caused strong dissatisfaction among fans, the trip’s Youtube account, B station account have different degrees powder. But at present, there are still 3 million followers on Youtube, and the number of domestic virtual anchor fans cannot reach even a fraction of it.
Trip Love
The Hedgehog Commune has learned that most people in the country are not full-time. This means that every virtual idol has no way to guarantee the continued and stable content survival. The time of live broadcast and production of video depends on the work schedule of the person in the team.
Although he has fun, he always treats the person as a part-time job. “My purpose of coming to Beijing is to dub. This is the reason why I am here. It is impossible to give up what I originally wanted because of other things.”
After saving the live broadcast, the other party is very satisfied with Akin’s performance. I hope that we can cooperate for a long time, and set the live broadcast time to three times a week. Each live broadcast, A Jin has to take subway line 6 for more than an hour from Chaoyang District to Haidian District, which takes up a lot of her time. Later, the live broadcast was changed to twice a week, and the time was reduced from four hours to two hours.
The other party said that if you find the right person, you will replace Akin, but you never find the right one. The time will be longer, this character is more and more like Akin, and it is harder to find someone .
The live content will change every time. I have tried playing games, singing, and dancing. Every time Akin tries to cooperate, but the effect is not obvious. When the live room was the most active, it was during the draw, but when the draw was over, it was quiet again.
She remembered that when the live broadcast room reached about tens of thousands of fans, the change was not too big.
A practitioner tells Hedgehog Commune that some companies spend money to investI am a virtual idol, a virtual anchor, but the people in power do not understand this thing, and still operate according to past operating experience. At the same time, the project needs to be profitable quickly.
More importantly, the domestic audience of virtual anchors is still very small. Core fans are divided up by more mature virtual anchors in Japan, and people outside the circle may simply not know that such a form exists.
Zhuang Buchun has been trying to make the image of “xylose pure” out of the circle, and made many attempts on video topic selection, but later found that the content that can be updated steadily for a long period of time is basically limited to games, chat, It is difficult to make great breakthroughs in these categories of music.
“B station is not just a second dimension now, we want to try to draw some subconscious people who like this form into this circle.” Chunjie said.
Like being the UP host and anchor of a real person, the person in the middle should also consider what kind of characteristics to give to the role, maintain their own personality, characteristics, and three views. These basic requirements will not be lowered because they are virtual images. It will even get higher.
In the eyes of partners, virtual anchors are not much different from real people. What they value is still the number of clicks and followers, which is very unfriendly to virtual anchors who are very niche.
Akin’s project has been stalled for a long time. Now, operating companies occasionally look for Akin, but they are no longer in this role.
“I feel a bit pity,” Akin said.
(All names in the text are pseudonyms)