I can understand why some people payed for OnlyFans when it was new, what I dont understand why people are STILL paying for OnlyFans. We are standing on the shoulders of those who layed the corner stone for OnlyFans to become lucrative enough that everybody and their grandma does it. Now I can type in any Instagram handle into DDG and the results for their siteripped OF pictures are above their official OF page.
Same thing with twitch or streamers in general. About a year ago I went from “What is this vtuber thingy?” to basically staying up late and watching 3 hrs of streams daily. I never actually spend any money or even made an twitch account and there were always enough other contributors so that I didn’t feel bad for lurking. But It went from enjoying the entertainment to asking myself “What the fuck am I doing?”. I stopped cold turkey, I occasionally watch some youtube shorts if they pop up in my feed or some highlight reels, but thats about it.
Especially the top streamers are borderline predatory. I dont what to throw every top streamer in the same bucket. But look at Emiru for example, her streams have objectively zero entertainment value and she gives me the vibe to genuenly despise 99% of her viewers. I’d like to ask somebody who enjoys her content to show me on this puppet where exactly they feel entertained. Is it the zero effort cosplays, or the sideeyed gameplay of some popular videogame. People are literally throwing money at a millionaire for nothing.
I can understand the streamers perspective, its the easiest paycheck ever earned. I just don’t get the people that support them. I know it’s the journey to the top that is disproportionaly hard. Building a brand and getting a steady income from streaming is next to impossible unless you fully commit, but once you earn multiple millions per year, own multiple houses, mutlille cars and can essentialy live more than comfortably off of dividents from your stocks, why not just cash out and dip instead of providing half-assed attempts at entertainment?
There are also definetly streamers who are 1 in 10.000 entertainment bombs, that push the envelope and are only held back by the limitation of their medium. Filian comes to mind. I wouldn’t be surprised if she just takes out a salary from her earnings and poures the rest right back in her stream. Next to no Coomer content, just good physical comedy and engagement. She definetly gives of scatterbrain overachiever with from a well off family that has “taken several courses on community management and platform development” vibes, but doesn’t heavily lean into it. And there’s at least some serious talent behind that.
It’s funny how on the internet the power dynamic is basically reversed. Men have to either grind for a decade or be cliniclay insane to have any chance of a career. And for women, if you’re mildly attractive (physically or emotionally) you already have a solid footing.
Can you help me understand what’s interesting about vtubers? Someone I knew was really into it, but watched a vtuber for a few minutes once and absolutely did not understand the appeal.
Female streamers are judged primarily based on their appearance. Using a vtuber model allows them to be judged by their personality and ability to entertain instead.
They usually start off playing a character but when you’re doing it for multiple hours every day, your real personality is going to start slipping in.
The models can only do so much. You could have the cutest model in the world but it’s still just a moving 2D image. If you’re not entertaining, you won’t retain an audience. There is a lot of competition in the vtubing scene, you won’t make it by just being cute. The vtuber, Mori Calliope, actually wrote a song about this.
There’s the appeal of the actual model. If you look at the whole scene, theres a clear bias towards anime style avatars. But even in the sea of big-eyed, no-nose lookalikes with various flamboyant haircolors there will be some that will stand out to you personally. You can attribute that to taste or personal preference. This aspect can range from legitimate reasons like “I’m a professional digital artist, and the diversity of vtuber models fuels inspiration for my own art” all the way down to “hehehe, anime tiddies”. I personaly like Bao, her model is clean and animated, her proportions aren’t to wild and the collors and accessories are limited, it’s aesthetically pleasing to look at. I never watched her streams, but if she pops up on a youtube short, i give it a watch.
Then there is the community aspect. Not so much the viewers but the streamers themselves. When I previously said that the power dynamic between men and women on the internet is reversed, that was a vast oversimplification. Women get still harrased and stalked if they show their face (they just get IN MY OPINION appropriately monetarily compensated for that risk). So if a streamer wants to hide behind an avatar they now have a community framework and an industry that supports them in the form of vtubing. This opens up more opportunities for talentet people that would otherwise be afraid of judgement to try themselves in the entertainment industry. Again you aren’t supposed to enjoy every streamer, you are looking for that 1 in 10.000. If that marble rolls into a vtuber, then thats how it is. The more opportunities, the more marbles, the more likely somebody is going to be good.
But the community aspect also backfires a lot. Filian once commented on how exhausting it is because everybody expects all vtubers to be best friends with each other, whether the actually like the person or not. If somebody steps out of line theres drama, and you really don’t want to piss of a community that is willing to spend 1000s of dollars on anime girls each month. Imagine if you were required by your employer to nurish intimate relationships with everyone of you coworkers. This gives the community an overall wholsome vibe, but below the surface it’s kind of sad and creepy.
If there is sustained drama, it’s often manufactured. But in the same sense reality TV drama is manufactured. People know what keeps viewers engaged and choose to lean into it. Everybody loves a piece of jucy gossip, and vtubers hanging out with each other off stream is a big aspect of that. A large part of the vtubing world is talking about what he said, she said, he did, she did and with whom. That’s your gossip. And you even get a live reaction from the person the gossip is about because their chat is a bunch if narcs. Often times they even call each other on stream and open up with “what did you just say about me?”. Its often lighthearted and in good spirit but still, you get the point. It’s this generations reality TV, but instead of spraytanned jocks being menaces on the streets of New Jersey you get anime girls talking about sex stuff. Its really that simple.
OK, do you ever had an actor or actress or director for whom their name alone on a film is a must watch? Aubrey Plaza, Christoph Walz, DiCaprio, Robert Downey Jr., you get it. And I know I mentioned her a lot but Filian is also on that list for me. And I know this sound a bit red flaggish but at some point I was just intrigued and asked my self “Who the hell is this woman?” The fact that she happens to be a vtuber and not a actress, comedian or writer is just the fact that vtubing has the broadest appeal compared to most forms of entertainment. Let’s plays, watchparties, just chating, reactions, music, education are all possible in the vtubing format. She for example did PO box streams, an interview with the CEO of twitch, visited an animal sanctuary, hosted multiple game shows, attended twitchcon on an iPad all within a year. Theres barely anything that the medium doesn’t allow, especially when you are creative with it. It’s just that I realized that consuming this kind of content for 3 hours a day is unsustainable and unhealthy.
So that is in fact what’s so interesting about it, it’s a creative outlet with the highest appeal and the least limitations. If it has internet a vtuber can go there and to their thing.
If you can’t get sex from being a cool person and you have to pay for it, that’s sad. If you’re addicted to sex and pay for it because you need sex is even sadder.
People who pay for sex are not universally “not cool people” who can’t get it other ways. In my work with various at risk populations, from what I hear from sex workers, plenty of people pay for sex. Funny charismatic, rich, doesn’t matter, they’re just as likely to be Johns.
That’s generally how it’s been done in America for hundreds of years. I think peasants in Europe did it like that even further back too. So how long until it can be considered “tradition”?
Rich families married for power, peasants married for love. That’s pretty much how it’s always been. Lmao do you think people who worked on a lords farm was also worrying about who their daughter could marry to get a leg up? That’s ridiculous
If you think peasants married for just love and not because their father promised them to the son of a farmer they have dealings with, or to a businessman who can provide well for her, or to elevate the family standing in some other way, I have bad news.
Even to this day, after all the strides for equality of the sexes is the material wealth of a man a substantial factor in choosing a partner for most women, even if they are plenty able to provide for themselves.
I agree with you, as stated above, but I have to mention that my wonderful wife more or less picked (for reasons I never understood) me up from homelessness and debt and has cared for me for the past 15 years. I guess these days I’m almost domesticated, even.
I didn’t say “just for love” but it did happen. None of this information provided contradicts my point that traditionally people have sex with people they like. That has been the case for a while now, back to my original question, how long until you would consider it tradition? 100 years seems enough to me
People from land-owning families did not normally marry for love. Instead, most such marriages were arranged by their parents or guardians.
Arranged marriages remain an important part of the culture of many societies in the world today, for the same implicit reasons that probably motivated medieval English people: for the creation of stable family units based on respect and duty, in which love can grow; and to protect and increase the family’s wealth and status by association with another family of equal or higher repute.
Peasant women who did not own any land were not exempt from some kind of control over their marriage, as many manorial lords demanded payment of a sum of money called a ‘merchet’
I followed an OF girl for a minute. She was totally stunning to me, but more, she was so artful. She put real work into her sets. Never seen anything like her before or since.
But here’s the thing, I paid her $5 a month because I wanted to and appreciated what she was doing. She deserved a little change, and I hope it adds up for her. I had no fantasy of her wanting to be with me. LOL, hell no. Been with plenty of pretty women, of all sorts, but she was something special. I truly appreciated the work she put into her look and outfits.
We chatted very briefly. Mainly me telling her what I said above. “Great work and I understand how hard it was to make it.”
TBH I’m on the spectrum but playing tons of CRPGs taught me how to empathize. After I got that realization when I was in college my social life got exponentially better. Even when I went to a high school reunion my old high school friend told me that I was unrecognizable.
I even managed to get married with someone who’s way outta my league.
My brother’s friend was “dating” a stripper for a few months. She wouldn’t see him outside the club except for meals at expensive restaurants, and she wouldn’t give him free dances at the club.
Yeah, it really comes down to your expectations. The more laid-back I've become about it (meaning I'm not expecting I'm going to fuck a stripper--I'm just there to hang out, have a good time, see pretty girls, have a drink), the better time I've had, the more fun the girls have, the less you have to spend to have a good time, etc...
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