Did people really pay $300 to see a VTuber reveal his face during a concert in Thailand?
If you have no idea what any part of this headline means, welcome.
A clip from a VTuber performance that took place on July 1 at the Cosplay Arts Festival in Thailand has gone viral on TikTok. The virality comes from two different factors: social media being confused over the audience’s reaction to a VTuber revealing his “virtual” face during a performance; and a rumor circulating that people paid $300 to watch the concert in the first place.
What is a VTuber?
A VTuber is a virtual YouTuber who uses digital avatars — typically drawn in anime style — to hide their true identities. For really big VTubers, real-time motion capture software is used to make the digital avatar re-create the YouTuber’s actual movements. The VTuber trend started in Japan in the mid-2010s and then exploded internationally in recent years.
Kizuna Al is credited as the first person to use the term “virtual YouTuber” in 2016, although Japanese vlogger Ami Yamato is sometimes credited as the first person to actually use a virtual avatar for her videos when she started her channel in 2011.
Up until 2021, Al was the most subscribed-to VTuber on YouTube with more than 4 million subscribers across three channels and 1 million subscribers on the Chinese video platform Bilibili. In February 2022, she hosted a farewell concert and hasn’t posted since.
Other popular VTubers who are still active include Gawr Gura (4.3 million subscribers), Houshou Marine (2.45 million subscribers) and Kuzuha (1.54 million subscribers).
What happened at the Cosplay Arts Festival in Thailand?
The Thailand Cultural Arts Center hosted the Cosplay Arts Festival (CAF) from June 30 to July 2, and it featured multiple VTuber performances.
VTuber Dacapo is the most popular member of a Thai Virtual Talent Agency called Algorhythm Project. He is the most subscribed-to talent out of the 26 VTubers in the Algorhythm Project with 236,000 followers and allegedly reached 100,000 YouTube subscribers within only the first 18 days of his channel launching.
Dacapo had a pre-ecorded performance that was shown at a concert within the festival on July 1, and that’s been the clip that’s since circulated all over social media. The full three-minute performance that was shown to audiences at CAF has since been uploaded to YouTube.
Dacapo sang a cover of Japanese artist Fujii Kaze’s song “Shinunoga E-Wa,” and what garnered a big audience reaction during the performance was when Dacapo, who had been swaying side to side throughout the song, suddenly flipped his hair and revealed his eyes.
Why are people making fun of Dacapo’s performance?
Social media users not entrenched in the VTuber world did not understand the audience’s reactions.
But there’s a popular misconception circulating with the clip that attendees paid $300 to watch Dacapo’s performance. In reality, CAF charged 300 Thai bhat to enter the festival, which equates to a little less than $9, and the VTuber performance was free for festival guests.
The amount of people on TikTok cooking this guy singing at a Thai concert event that cost 9 USD bc they can’t understand different world currencies is crazy.
What’s more, the concert was actually free, with the con itself being 9 bucks.
Let people have fun. pic.twitter.com/II9OdTLQJC— Tyler Not Taylor (@Tyler_462) July 9, 2023
On July 9, Dacapo responded to the criticism in a tweet that roughly translates to, “Meeting a mean person doesn’t make my eyes as clear as a kind person.”
Several other VTubers chimed in to encourage Dacapo to continue singing and performing.
“You have an amazing voice dude, never stop singing,” Shoto, a VTuber with over 1 million subscribers, tweeted in response.
“Your voice is incredible,” Ironmouse, an American VTuber and one of the biggest VTubers right now, agreed. “I am so glad we live in a world where everyone around the world can hear it no matter where you live.”
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