Vtubing is a Religion

[Anonymous No.]

It's very different from just anime waifus you masturbate onto. Having an Oshi is putting your Faith, Hope and Trust in someone whom you can't even be sure exists, but in turn, they give you happiness and inspiration to continue furthermore in the harsh realities of life. In essence, they become your Saviour. And as a result, you worship them more, support them in all their endeavours, proselytise for them, and crusade against the antis who dare slander their name. Because having faith in your Oshi not only gives her happiness and hope but also gives you happiness and hope. Every message is a prayer, every superchat an offertory, every merch a holy relic, every milestone, achievement or collab a miracle.

Heck Vtubing is like the marriage of anime and religion. More so than the Church of Madoka. It isn't just a pre-scripted anime girl to fap on, it's an anime girl you can actually worship and respond to your prayers.

Heck, that's one of the reasons I considered Kiryu Coco/Kson to fit the Messianic Archetype trope checklist. Her true biggest appeal is that she wants to help and save everyone, moreso than being a shitposting meme dragon. In Hololive, just ask Watame, Aqua, Marine and Haachama. She endured the Chinese persecution led by Judas (Artia) and forgave them, even choosing to die (graduation) for it. Now she in her resurrected form wants to save the Indie world and usher in Paradise (break the boundaries between corpos and indies), and even saved someone whom Japan had already given up on and on the verge of suicide (Mikeneko), even if it meant doing a Lelouch, i.e. by joining Vshojo as part of her plan, she became a reviled traitor and even painfully lost her most beloved (Kanata). Such a personality is unironically the definition of a hero, and deserves worship and admiration.

At the same time, there are false gods who'd fail you. I did it with Pippa, she became my inspiration in life because I relate myself to her too much, but it only ended in disaster, humiliation and betrayal.

Face it. In this modern secular world devoid of Gods and spirits, Vtubers have begun to fulfill the role. They are the Gods of the modern world. Thus, it is really fitting to call Vtubers Idols: for they are in the original theological definition, Idols.

[Anonymous No.]

>>30644878
Did you know "fans" are just an acronym for "fanatics"? You might be onto something there, you shitstirring SEAman.

[Anonymous No.]

>>30644956
It is. But at least ordinary fans did not have parasocial relationships that cultivate a religion around the object of fandom.

[Anonymous No.]

After God Died, western culture just created some replacements.
The powerlevel chart goes like this:
Actually God > Mankind's intrinsic religious behavior > mankind's various concepts of God

[Anonymous No.]

>>30644878

[Anonymous No.]

>>30644878
>he got abandoned by pippa
lmaoo

[Anonymous No.]

>>30644878
There are two problems here. One would be the metaphysical aspect remains within what is known regarding the ontological level at which the technology supporting vtubing operates. This is a meh problem that I wont talk about.
The other problem is their imperfect nature, as in incomplete and/or changing. In this sense they are not gods nor idols, but inspiring heroes and spmetimes villains, and all the gray in between. I would say they are closer to a cult than to a religion, except not all encompassing in nature regarding the audience. Maybe a social structure similar to a cult, but wholesome (most of the time), constructive/creative and mostly online. Heroes of the digital and maturely interconnected era (for better and for worse). Also whether they are villains or not depends ultimately on their growth and its relationship to the audience (including implicit values present in the content produced, specially if enjoyed) existing in harmony and facing the same general direction (or maybe working as a balanced system). It is not directly dependent, but it can feel and seem like it, on the feelings of the audience, but how these feelings fuel the vtuber-audience-worldview (even if only a particular part of it due content limitations) dynamic.

[Anonymous No.]

>>30644878
I agree kson is more of a christian figure, but vtuber role and worship comes from mikos and shintoism, they are like local/smaller gods you can worship.
The roomates are the mikos who perform a trance known as "vtubing" in order to channel the shinto gods/spirits (the character), which are then worshipped by the masses.
It's also kind of like a more indepth Invoking Ritual from occult magical orders, where as creating anime is more like Evoking rituals.

[Anonymous No.]

>>30646083
Holy shit. You are right. Although the gods choose their vessels carefully and often to send a message. At least in my experience. Might be just me projecting shit and thinking they are synchronicities and bs poetry in reality itself. Talking about synchronicities, my tooth in broken.

[Anonymous No.]

>>30645948
>>30645948
Heroes/villains are similar to smaller gods, moreso with so many cases where the line blurs between history and myth, and they become divinized later on (Alexander the Great) or are semigods themselves (Heracles). Both seem to be valid comparisons.
I agree there is an audience worship feedback and a cultural background feedback (if culture changes, their heros also do so, "either you die as a hero or you live long enough to become a villain"), though that can also be said about local god worship.
But yeah, ultimately they perform a role in the internet age of which such psychological niche was vacant or at least not filled in a satisfying manner by fleshtubers and celebrities.

[Anonymous No.]

Go promote your freemason propaganda elsewhere

[Anonymous No.]

>>30646221
you notice how people dislike when the avatar doesn't match the roomate's personality or voice? It is seem as dishonest and fake.
The way the gods choose their vessels is based on how well they can channel their specific archetype. Like someone who's genki as fuck won't channel a calm being properly. There needs to be compatibility, the more obstructions the harder it is to channel properly.

[Anonymous No.]

>>30646340
>freemason
>explictly implying

[Anonymous No.]

>>30644878
There's a reason why idol culture is rampant in East Asia, because they have no religion.
Human needs a spiritual fulfilment in their life, it's the byproduct of animalistic behavior of following the leader of the pack.
If you have no religion, the chance is bigger for you to succumb into this idolatry and unicorn thing. That's why for example the Holo ID is immune from any unicorn drama, because there's no idol culture there, they have real religions to follow instead of following virtual girls or real idol girls like their goddesses.

You can mock religious people all you want, until you realize that you have some kind of cult following in your life too.

[Anonymous No.]

>>30645948
>>30646315
Even the biggest religions, Christianity and Islam, themselves are hero worship. Around Jesus and Muhammad respectively.

[Anonymous No.]

>>30648065
Yeah there's basically two psychological functions at play here.
Humans have a built in system to learn by imitating their peers, specially their parents (childhood), their peers (teenagers) and the top dudes in their hierarchy (adulthood).
The second one is how the conscious mind deals with concepts which are "avatars" of more broad, unconscious types. (like in platonic metaphysics where the ideal/unconscious object like say, "the ideal ball", would be the type, and the conscious/real object is the "real balls"). You could say the datasets being fed to visual recognition AIs like the captchas that ask you to identify a certain object are trying to reverse engineer the "type of X" by feeding it endless real instances of said object.

Types and imitation both go into the reason why mankind is religious and the influence of heroes (the ideal role model) and villains (the ideal anti-role model), and of course there's also the community aspect, and the selective pressure on memes and behavior because of the different levels of survival and reproduction fitness they each grant.
And types are compatible both with spiritual and physical metaphysics so it's broad enough for you to fit your metaphysics of choice.

[Anonymous No.]

Indeed. Pondering the nature of the word Idol and what it means, tends to drive one to more spiritual conclusions. I'm surprised somebody else picked up on it.

However, Coco can hardly be considered a messiah. She is vtubing's antichrist. Coco has started, and actively pushes for the westernization and dejapanification of vtubing culture. In her perfect world, she would kill the concept of idols and make them generic western streamers. No soul, no love, no culture.
It was an amusing routine in Hololive, but I'm glad she was forced out. For Hololive's part, they seem to understand the nature of the Idol as a religious figure, for they severely limit EN from JP interaction. No EN in Hologras. When EN are dragged into game shows, the show is still set in Japanese, with no obligation on JP members to speak English with them. In this way, Hololive protects the flame

[Anonymous No.]

>>30645948
>Maybe a social structure similar to a cult, but wholesome (most of the time), constructive/creative
So... idols?

[Anonymous No.]

>>30644878
Calm down bro.

[Anonymous No.]

>>30644878
>idols will speak and move about

[Anonymous No.]

>>30650959
>However, Coco can hardly be considered a messiah. She is vtubing's antichrist
She spread the wonderful world of Vtubing worldwide with holoEN, took the persecution of the zhangs and even died to protect everyone, And yet she still resurrected with a mission to save the Vtubing world. If that's not Messianic Archetype, I don't know what is.

>No soul, no love, no culture.
You advocate for the totalitarianism demanded by the zhangs and also what makes Hololive so stagnant and bland today. Hololive's golden age was when there was someone like Coco to push the boundaries with no bugbrain to oppose it. Now it feels just like a fake and soulless prison.

[Anonymous No.]

>>30645494
No, they went straight for the endgame of VTubers; focus so much on their idol that they create a mental construct in their minds that tells them what to do.

[Anonymous No.]

Haachama is the anti-christ and Akai Haato is Jesus

[Anonymous No.]

>>30651010
I might have an overly restrictive definition of idol, so you might be right. Although what I said includes a system/community beyond the idol too.

[Anonymous No.]

>>30646592
>That's why for example the Holo ID is immune from any unicorn drama, because there's no idol culture there, they have real religions to follow instead of following virtual girls or real idol girls like their goddesses.
I thought it was because they lead the seethe at the lack of virginity of HoloEN

[Anonymous No.]

>>30646592
Moona is literally the Moon Goddess and has the hips of a goddess

[Anonymous No.]

Celebrities are cults of personality. This much has always been true.

[Anonymous No.]

Henry is a flip and should do a flip instead of larping as a christcuck because Pippa and Lumi banned him