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How we\u2019ll accept digital influencers<\/strong><\/p>\n So what\u2019s the appeal?<\/p>\n YouTube\u2019s Allocca credits communities that build around them. We see these around VTubers, who often hold live chats with viewers, and fan communities on Reddit and Wikia.<\/p>\n \u201cThere’s a unique quality to the content that virtual YouTubers offer\u2026 it isn’t directly tethered to the problems of a real individual or identity,\u201d says Reddit user David Kim, who\u2019s a contributor to the Virtual YouTuber subreddit. \u201cIt’s got the intrigue of character writing with the lackadaisical feel of live, organic, self-driven content.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI would say that the biggest contributor to the rise of virtual YouTube is the huge audience outside Japan who normally have interest for Japanese media and culture, such as anime,\u201d says another fan, Kit Hakansson.<\/p>\n The trend within Japan of preferring digital over live-action personalities can be traced back four decades, says Izumi Tsuji, a sociology and culture professor at Chuo University. Tsuji points to a famous Japanese sociologist, Munesuke Mita, who posited that as a result of the slowed economic growth following the global oil crisis in the 1970s, many in the nation might have developed a listlessness with reality that could last to this day.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom the latter half of the 1970s, we Japanese lost a certain goal or future of our society,\u201d Tsuji says. \u201cWe tended to love the world of fiction. From this period, we tended to love enthusiastically anime, games and idols instead of realistic movie and music stars.\u201d One example of this, Tsuji says, is Hatsune Miku, the famous holographic pop star in Japan whose voice is digitally produced.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n