LAST EDITED ON Jan-14-17 AT 08:46 PM (EST)
 
(which we were, briefly)

So it's an odd thing. I've known about the Vocaloid thing for years now, in a "part of the background hum" kind of way. I knew what the software was for, that it had become (to use the well-worn news media phrase) a pop culture phenomenon, and so on. I could pick Hatsune Miku out of a lineup. We've talked about her and her kind a couple of times around here before.

But for whatever reason I'd never particularly, I dunno, engaged with the concept. I didn't dislike it; in fact, on a techno-cultural level, I thought it was kind of cool (and startlingly reminiscent of William Gibson's 1996 novel Idoru). I didn't have any particular investment in the concept or the characters, though. It was all just kind of there. I knew people who were into it and they seemed like they were having fun, and that was cool, but that was about it. It was like... well, like having friends who were into a band you don't have particularly strong feelings about, not altogether inappropriately.

Over the last few days, though, I've had the odd experience of randomly connecting in some way with a thing I'd already known about but never taken much notice of. It started with re-reading the Shiba Dog Admiral KanColle doujin, one page of which on Danbooru had a link to the YouTube video dedicated to same in the comments. That led to the discovery that there are gajillions of videos out there based on the MikuMikuDance engine, many of which (like the Shiba Dog Admiral one, come to that) are set to Vocaloid songs even if they don't have any of the actual Vocaloid characters in them; and that cross-pollinated to videos that do involve the actual character whose name is in the name of the software (twice!), and, well, so forth.

It's a natural enough cross-connect with themes I've worked with for a long time—there's pretty much never been any shortage of singing computers in UF, after all. (Heck, that came up in both of the previous conversations. One of them was specifically about that.) So I have no idea why it didn't really click with me before, or why it's doing so now, but I'm starting to Get Into It a bit. There are possibilities. And hey! Given the way their likenesses are licensed, they're statistically less likely to get us sued than anyone else we've ever borrowed.

I don't have any specific plans yet, and in terms of this fandom Phil was here a long time before I was anyway, so it wouldn't do to act unilaterally. I just felt like noting that yeah, I kind of get it now. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.