Stream

Straight up "disagreement with management"

LAST EDITED ON Nov-30-24 AT 08:14 PM (EST)
 
Hopefully they take this shot-across-the-bow for what it is and start taking steps to un-fuck themselves.

Edit: judging by the look of the official announcement from Cover, they're as blindsided by this as we are. There's no big, polished announcement like there was for Chloe. Definitely a shot across the bow, if not right down the throat.

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

I've never been particularly into Hololive (not counting playing Holocure), but this whole Thing kinda has me scratching my head. They had a formula that worked, why have they apparently decided to mess with success?

-IA.

(received information not interpretable)

They went public.

They also made large capital investments into their studio and want to see RoI on it.

>They went public.

Pippa was responding to the news about Fauna's graduation by saying aloud that if Phase ever goes public she will be gone very shortly after. That financial obligations to investors and their power to force company changes come at the expense of the talents.

HL's following a very worrying pattern that we've already seen from another company this very year: Nijisanji. I've seen more than one talent utter the same comment as heard from Niji veterans: "Things have changed." Regis was mentioning last night that he sent a piece of equipment to HQ four months ago and was told "We'll look at it," had them send it back to him after weeks of no progress, and troubleshot the problem in an hour. The kicker? It was covered in dust, indicating they possibly hadn't touched it since receiving it.

Considering Nijisanji has made itself the shame of the industry and most people were praising Hololive for basically NOT being Nijisanji, how is it exactly that they seem to think going the way of Nijisanji is good?

I don't know jack squat about the vtuber industry, someone's gonna have to eli5 this whole situation to me.

>Considering Nijisanji has made itself the shame of the industry and
>most people were praising Hololive for basically NOT being Nijisanji,
>how is it exactly that they seem to think going the way of Nijisanji
>is good?
>
>I don't know jack squat about the vtuber industry, someone's gonna
>have to eli5 this whole situation to me.

The vtubing industry as a whole has exited its boom period and is struggling under the weight of market forces. A lot of smaller start-ups have either folded entirely or been gobbled up, while the corpos are trying to maintain profitability in the midst of an economic downturn in Japan. It doesn't help that the two biggest platforms for vtubing (YT and Twitch) have both taken actions in the last year that have hurt revenues for those companies and the industry as a whole (ex: YT axing VOD/fan channels and Twitch banning vtubers for "lewd" behavior).

Found myself realizing earlier HL's graduations seem to be largely those talents that started pre-2022, back before a lot of the pandemic restrictions were lifted and the company started going hard into live 3d concerts and fan events.

>They went public.
>
>They also made large capital investments into their studio and want to
>see RoI on it.

The flip side is, when the company hit the critical moment, the only options were to either go public or sell the whole thing to somebody else, according to this Reddit thread - https://old.reddit.com/r/Hololive/comments/1h3yk8z/didnt_know_this_interesting_to_know/ . So it puts Yagoo and co between a rock and a hard place, transitioning from the heady startup times to a more “solid” corporate base. I’m not sure you can keep in the startup-venture-capital mode indefinitely; eventually something’s gotta give.

—- Philip

	Philip J. Moyer Contributing Writer, Editor and Artist (and Moderator) -- Eyrie Productions, Unlimited CEO of MTS, High Poobah Of Artwork, and High Priest Of the Church Of Aerianne -- Magnetic Terrapin Studios "Insert Pithy Comment Here" Fandoms -- Fanart -- Fan Meta Discussions

> I’m not sure you can keep in the startup-venture-capital mode
> indefinitely; eventually something’s gotta give.'

Technically, Valve managed it? But that's an entirely different thing, and a case of some extreme luck. Cover doesn't have a Steam to be a revenue stream.

And to what others have said about Twitch and Youtube being almost aggressively anti-vtuber, Cover (and others?) have apparently been working on their own streaming service type thing since like 2021, but it's real hard to spin one of those up, with the kind of traffic you'd expect from it, plus it'd be separating themselves from their most comfortable audiences. It's a *huge* risk, and especially risks altering the dynamic of the audiences and chats. We all know that Twitch and Youtube chats have very different vibes - Twitch is more likely to have randos come in and talk shit, more chaotic, etc, while youtube is generally a more 'We're here for the community'.

>I’m not sure you can keep in the
>startup-venture-capital mode indefinitely

Having worked for a number of companies that hit that tipping point while I worked there, back in the day: no, no you cannot. At least, not if the corporate goal is continuous growth forever (which is unfeasible, yet also established doctrine). As a general rule of thumb, I found that you lose that village feel right quick once the outfit outgrows its original office.

--G.
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Raora apparently had the very first stream after Fauna's announcement. She had some words, though she admits that she doesn't have the right words.

Also, if you want to continue following Fauna's flesh woman (to use Matara Kan's term), people aren't even trying to be coy the way they were with Sana/Namie: the indie identity she'll return to in January is named LemonLeaf.

>Also, if you want to continue following Fauna's flesh woman (to use
>Matara Kan's term), people aren't even trying to be coy the way they
>were with Sana/Namie: the indie identity she'll return to in January
>is named LemonLeaf.

I think what really changed in the past 3 years is a realization that when a corpo vtuber graduates and returns to their indie identity, maintaining the kayfabe and blanking all mention of their "past life" cripples them because former fans who aren't willing to do the digging will not know that their oshi is still streaming just with a different face. Between that, the Selen/Doki fiasco, and (most recently) "The Ame Way" has done a lot to break down the rules so that only the worry over legal troubles prevents talents from talking openly about their former identities.

Although, Namie apparently blocks and bans anyone who brings up Hololive or Sana, and rarely streams to boot - I think she wants to put it all far in the past, while everyone who’s been graduating recently goes right back to it in some way or other, new identity or old.

This doesn't explain her low frequency of streaming, but I'm pretty sure the "block and ban" thing is because she immediately got sick and tired of people calling her, or saying how much they miss, Sana. Pretty sure Dooby doesn't appreciate being called Ame, either; they might have the same flesh woman, but they're separate characters.

I think her streaming frequency is partly due to recovering from surgeries- Sana was pretty "on-model" to her actual chest size, and the weight did severe damage to her back. Which in turn means her career with Hololive was always going to be limited- much like Vesper, the 3d idol stuff would've been "ha ha no, I will actually die".

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

Sana also decided to basically quit content creation and is happy being known solely as an artist, so having a clean break makes perfect sense for her.

I was under the impression that some of the "don't bring up PLs" was so as not to dox the talent if they had identifying info on that PL and to not hold anything from the PL against them.

Semi-relatedly, I'm very surprised Kronii put a pic of herself on her PL, considering how private she tends to be.

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

>I was under the impression that some of the "don't bring up PLs" was
>so as not to dox the talent if they had identifying info on that PL
>and to not hold anything from the PL against them.
>
>Semi-relatedly, I'm very surprised Kronii put a pic of herself on her
>PL, considering how private she tends to be.
>
>"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

Probably was feeling better about herself for once and wanted to show off her makeup game.

She's very very very very infrequently posted stuff before but only in full costume or with a different mostly tomboy-ish look.

Arrarararara? I’ve been wondering a bit about a Kronii....

Her PL is Dottovu (highlight to read), and the pic was about a week back on the Tweeter machine. Amusingly, the Kronii-est fanart I've ever seen of her is on the art tag for that PL; she's shaking her fist at the Sun and shouting "I'm tired of your shit, come down and fight me!"

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

LAST EDITED ON Dec-03-24 AT 04:54 PM (EST)
 
She’d already thrown hands at the moon, its the next logical step.

Ahh, it’s the same as her YouTube, convenient~

One thing I worry about with the brouhaha surrounding Fauna's announcement; by now anyone who's even slightly following the situation knows that her PL is Lemonleaf, and that channel has gone from ~20k subscribers to 274k (at time of this posting). My concern is that people are going to expect her to pick right back up January 4th, and when she doesn't the smoothbrains are going to pitch a riot.

Hopefully I'm just overthinking things and this doesn't turn into (even more of) a shitshow.

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

My expectation is (perhaps optimistically) that a few people will pitch a fit, but they'll fail to get traction and no large-scale backlash will materialize.

>My concern is
>that people are going to expect her to pick right back up January 4th,
>and when she doesn't the smoothbrains are going to pitch a riot.

I don't have a ton of exposure to the sapling community, but I have the impression that their overheated-shithead quotient is fairly low. That said, we haven't really seen how they react to extreme stress and anxiety before.

--G.
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Like I said, I hope I'm wrong, but it just feels different this time with so many people openly saying "oh, here's where we go next".

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

The only vtuber I can think of that went right back to their indie identity in less than a week after they graduated was Dokibird, and she did that by simply hauling her old model out of storage and going live two days after the official announcement of Selen's "graduation." She was that determined to spit in Riku's eye.

Dooby debuted less that a month after a certain detectives "graduation," but we already know that her "flesh woman" is crazy skilled with regards to rigging and motion capture so that's not so surprising. But most of the others you can name took a minimum 2-3 months between graduation and debut to get things in order. And going back to Doki, she was still using that old model for 4 months before her 2.0 model was ready to appear. That actually caused a bit of an amusing moment on a recent stream where she acknowledged she'd been nominated for Streamer of the Year, but the notice she was sent still showed her old model.

So yeah, anybody who gets bent out of shape if Lemonleaf takes awhile to start back up needs to be told (kindly but firmly) to STFD and STFU.

I don't think anyone is realistically expecting Fauna to literally immediately the next day start streaming again. A lot of these girls also take the opportunity to commission an updated/new model and those things don't usually get done that quickly.

Aqua took exactly 1 month to re-debut after graduating.

Even Coco took a month off and she never stopped using her private account to begin with. And she didn't even have to get a model since she went back to being half/half RL streaming/vtubing.

And for the people that were fired...

Rushia was technically back on her old account a little over 2 weeks after getting fired, but with a RL handcam, and then a second stream as a pngtuber. She took 2 months to re-debut with a new model.

Mel took a month and a half to come back after getting fired, and that was also primarily as a pngtuber with occasional below the neck ASMR. It took about 10 months for her to re-debut as a vtuber.

I agree, I've just seen enough people being unrealistic about the whole situation that it makes me worry. Granted, there's a month left, so there's time for them to cool down.

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

>I agree, I've just seen enough people being unrealistic about the
>whole situation that it makes me worry.

Well, as my late grandfather might have said, don't borrow trouble.

--G.
yeah, I know, I'm bad at following that advice too
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The current thing I’ve seen mostly, is people accusing the other girls talking about how the company has changed, but it’s not necessarily bad changes, and that some people just want different things, is that they’re doing PR damage control at management behest.

They even pulled this with Kronii, and we’ve seen how she takes to people telling her what to do, so that’s dumb of them. :3 kronii’s the....fourth? Most likely holomem to tell management, up to and including Yagoo himself, to fuck himself sideways if she didn’t like something she was told to do. After Matsuri, Callie, and Kiara. Probably even in that order.

Anyway, they just want confirmation of what they’ve already decided to believe.

>Most likely holomem to tell management, up to and including Yagoo himself, to >fuck himself sideways if she didn’t like something she was told to do.

If not throw hands outright! Kronii is my first thought if I saw a headline like "vtuber defenstrates manager during workplace argument" on the news.

>Anyway, they just want confirmation of what they’ve already decided
>to believe.

I'm reminded of a quote from Iron Man 2- "If you can make God bleed, people would cease to believe in him"; Hololive has had this perfect reputation for long enough that I feel it's making the backlash even stronger than what you'd see otherwise.

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

Yeah, Kronii's the "One severe argument away from breaking out the Geneva Checklist" type of Canadian. :3

>I'm reminded of a quote from Iron Man 2- "If you can make God bleed,
>people would cease to believe in him"; Hololive has had this perfect
>reputation for long enough that I feel it's making the backlash even
>stronger than what you'd see otherwise.

As was noted a time or two back when Kurosanji was falling apart earlier this year, Hololive is a far sight better than it was at the beginning. We're far removed from the days when talents got put in time-out for acknowledging Taiwan's existence as a sovereign nation. It would be more accurate to say that HL's reputation is only "perfect" when you compare to (most) of its competitors.

For comparison's sake, kson has never spent part or even entire streams talking about horror stories from her days at HL. Matara and Michi can't say the same thing.

There's no possible way Kronii rates as high as 4th unless you're counting that list being after almost the entirety of the ID roster.

I think ID would tell them they'll do it, then just do whatever the hell they were going to do in the first place, rather than just outright go "Fuck no, are you stupid?"

>The current thing I’ve seen mostly, is people accusing the other
>girls talking about how the company has changed, but it’s not
>necessarily bad changes, and that some people just want different
>things, is that they’re doing PR damage control at management
>behest.

I won't lie and say it never crossed my mind, but what PR damage is there that really needs to be controlled? Multiple graduations in a year citing some variation of "disagreement with management" are embarrassing for a company, but since none of the talents are clarifying their "disagreements," all we have are rumors and innuendo being fashioned to suit the listener's beliefs.

When you compare that to all the allegations that we made against not only Kurosanji but other companies that we could mention that have since folded, the idea that Hololive is becoming too physically demanding for its talents seems tame by comparison. We're not hearing allegations of bullying by managers or other talents, managers are more often accused of over-managing talents than ignoring them, said talents also commenting on how the company is taking mental health and potential for burnout more seriously than they did in the past, and forgetting to file work passport paperwork is a far cry from leaving them on the hook for years of unpaid taxes. Somehow, I don't think you'll ever hear any of those who've since left HL telling us a story about how they were threatened with being escorted out of the HQ by police for joking about "stealing" their YT plaque.

>They even pulled this with Kronii, and we’ve seen how she takes to
>people telling her what to do, so that’s dumb of them. :3 kronii’s
>the....fourth? Most likely holomem to tell management, up to and
>including Yagoo himself, to fuck himself sideways if she didn’t like
>something she was told to do. After Matsuri, Callie, and Kiara.
>Probably even in that order.

As much as Kronii complains about her "homework" and the stress of the job, I don't believe for a sec she'd put up with any of it if she didn't want to. Same with Bae and Shiori, both of whom I've heard comment in recent days on Fauna's graduation and both have made clear that they still enjoy being with HL despite the demands of the work and would speak up if they were doing things they didn't want to.

>Anyway, they just want confirmation of what they’ve already decided
>to believe.

IMO, I think there are those who've grown dissatisfied with the industry moving the emphasis away from streaming and towards live performances and are looking for confirmation that it's having a negative effect. I'll admit that I feel that way to a degree, but to quote a wiser man than I, "But times change and so must I."

LAST EDITED ON Dec-05-24 AT 08:00 PM (EST)
 
>As much as Kronii complains about her "homework" and the stress of the
>job, I don't believe for a sec she'd put up with any of it if she
>didn't want to.

There's also the very real possibility that we shouldn't use her as any kind of yardstick, since she once flew to Japan to do Idol Business like... six minutes after major surgery, when any normal person would have been, if not still in the hospital, at least at home cultivating a fruitful long-term partnership with the couch.

>IMO, I think there are those who've grown dissatisfied with the
>industry moving the emphasis away from streaming and towards live
>performances and are looking for confirmation that it's having a
>negative effect. I'll admit that I feel that way to a degree, but to
>quote a wiser man than I, "But times change and so must I."

I have to admit I often find myself consciously trying not to use, or at least overuse, the phrase "idol nonsense". I recognize that it's unfair even as I'm thinking it, but I still think it. I mean, I even enjoy the concert stuff most of the time, I just... am not convinced the balance is right? Something like that.

--G.
Mind you, my after-impression of Breaking Dimensions is colored somewhat by the knowledge of how many members got COVID as a souvenir. One of them came back with permanent injury, for crissake. It skews the cost-benefit analysis somewhat, I'm just sayin'.
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>There's also the very real possibility that we shouldn't use her as
>any kind of yardstick, since she once flew to Japan to do Idol
>Business like... six minutes after major surgery, when any normal
>person would have been, if not still in the hospital, at least
>at home cultivating a fruitful long-term partnership with the couch.

Let's be honest, most any one we can name has admitted to either working through pain and misery because they didn't want to disappoint fans or because they really wanted to finish whatever project they were involved in. Wasn't it Calli who admitted she'd been putting off surgery for weeks to finish work on an MV?

>I have to admit I often find myself consciously trying not to use, or
>at least overuse, the phrase "idol nonsense". I recognize that it's
>unfair even as I'm thinking it, but I still think it. I mean, I even
>enjoy the concert stuff most of the time, I just... am not
>convinced the balance is right? Something like that.
>
>--G.
>Mind you, my after-impression of Breaking
>Dimensions is colored somewhat by the knowledge of how many
>members got COVID as a souvenir. One of them came back with
>permanent injury, for crissake. It skews the cost-benefit
>analysis somewhat, I'm just sayin'.

For all the joking that Yagoo's dream was to create an idol agency but ended up with an "entertainment company," I think there was some element of truth to it. Certainly the "idol nonsense" is more economically viable in the JP market than it is in the EN market where conventions are more the way fans interact with their idols. I suspect a lot the current headaches will be smoothed out if/when HL finishes work on the EN HQ they're rumored to be working on. Certainly it will make life easier if talents don't feel compelled to migrate to Japan just to avoid the constant travel requirements.

>Let's be honest, most any one we can name has admitted to either
>working through pain and misery because they didn't want to disappoint
>fans or because they really wanted to finish whatever project they
>were involved in.

True, but I still think Kronii's Jaw Adventure still merits some kind of prize in that department. Her description of the condition she was in on that trip was... horrifying.

>Wasn't it Calli who admitted she'd been putting off
>surgery for weeks to finish work on an MV?

To be fair, she also cited cowardice among the delaying factors, which I think any of us who have undergone major surgery can identify with pretty readily. :)

--G.
as she herself sang during a recent Dark Souls stream, "♪ that's my cowardly oshi~"
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>True, but I still think Kronii's Jaw Adventure still merits some kind
>of prize in that department. Her description of the condition she was
>in on that trip was... horrifying.
>
>To be fair, she also cited cowardice among the delaying factors, which
>I think any of us who have undergone major surgery can identify with
>pretty readily. :)
>
>--G.
>as she herself sang during a recent Dark Souls
>stream, "♪ that's my cowardly oshi~"

Calli is me before surgery, Kronii is definitely me after the surgery. When they jammed the defrib implant in me last year, the only reason I took the following week off was because I was put on restricted movement for a week to let the stitches set and so I'd have been useless at work. They gave me a bottle with six Percs on the way out the door and I ended up throwing out all but the one I used to get me to sleep the night after the surgery.

Kronii is my spirit animal.

>>As much as Kronii complains about her "homework" and the stress of the
>>job, I don't believe for a sec she'd put up with any of it if she
>>didn't want to.
>
>There's also the very real possibility that we shouldn't use her as
>any kind of yardstick, since she once flew to Japan to do Idol
>Business like... six minutes after major surgery, when any normal
>person would have been, if not still in the hospital, at least
>at home cultivating a fruitful long-term partnership with the couch.

This is why I found myself scoff/laughing at the doomposters going "Kronii will be next to graduate because of the Idol Stuff"- she likes the Idol Stuff from all appearances.

>Mind you, my after-impression of Breaking
>Dimensions is colored somewhat by the knowledge of how many
>members got COVID as a souvenir. One of them came back with
>permanent injury, for crissake. It skews the cost-benefit
>analysis somewhat, I'm just sayin'.

To be completely fair Calli gives the impression that if you shot her leg off, she'd take 2 tylenol and not worry about it until morning.

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

>To be completely fair Calli gives the impression that if you shot her
>leg off, she'd take 2 tylenol and not worry about it until morning.

I... cannot, in good conscience, dispute this.

Really, both of the women discussed in this sub-subthread seem to qualify for the descriptor "built different".

--G.
-><-
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Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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> There's also the very real possibility that we shouldn't use her as any kind of yardstick, since she once flew to Japan to do Idol Business like... six minutes after major surgery, when any normal person would have been, if not still in the hospital, at least at home cultivating a fruitful long-term partnership with the couch.

It's awkward to talk about but there's also, well, Business Decisions at play. Some of the girls have been grinding long enough and needing any big break that they'll hold onto the job as long as they can because it's still a pretty good one compared to the horror shows they've done in the past. And some of the girls do not publicly have much else actually going on work wise, and so things would need to get dire before they pull the ripcord.

LAST EDITED ON Dec-05-24 AT 10:04 PM (EST)
 

>I won't lie and say it never crossed my mind, but what PR damage is
>there that really needs to be controlled?

Covers stock dropped 13% following Chloe and Fauna's announcements, so...

>>I won't lie and say it never crossed my mind, but what PR damage is
>>there that really needs to be controlled?
>
>Covers stock dropped 13% following Chloe and Fauna's announcements,
>so...

A certain percentage of investors panic-sell when anything affecting a company's public perception happens, though. Sometimes even when it's a good thing!

--G.
DISCLAIMER: I have spent much of my adult life actively evading a deeper understanding of financial matters.
><-
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.

>>Covers stock dropped 13% following Chloe and Fauna's announcements,
>>so...
>
>A certain percentage of investors panic-sell when anything
>affecting a company's public perception happens, though. Sometimes
>even when it's a good thing!

That's a part of it, but I'd also argue that it's no so much a measure of PR damage as it is lost earnings potential. Two talents announce their graduations within 24 hours of each other and only the first is going "affiliate"? That's a lot of money that Hololive is losing in the coming year, on top of the other three that have been costing the company for months now. Plus the "affiliate" business is such a new concept that there's no way to tell if it will help the company in the long run, as while they're still able to sell merch and cameo appearances, no streaming means no revenue from superchats or ad revenue.

The questions now are can the company recover from the shock of these two graduations and how much revenue will they lose in the long term.

Now Suisei has weighed in on all the talk that the talents are being forced to do "idol nonsense" and not being allowed to rest, which can be summed up as "WTF are you guys on about...?"

#BelieveTalents
HOWEVER
We also need to recognize the biases in some of the people that spoke up who 1) live in Japan, 2) are incredible workaholics and are just built that way, 3) are some of THE top talents in the company and have their careers taking off.

Foreign members have spoken up on how the multi-month travel each year has been really hard on them, or have needed various time off because of being sick or are barely streaming as it is, or are bluntly at a lower tier and, in a corporate structure and when comparing themselves to their peers, can be afraid of turning down opportunities for fear of not getting them the next time.

It's probably also not "idol nonsense" keeping girls down but management permission, streaming permission, waste of time meetings, and other 'homework'.

At least some of The “homework” is almost certainly lessons - singing and dancing.

The multi month travel is absolutely rough - big part of why they’re setting up a US office. That, and the JP studio is booked *solid* - as I understand things, that played a role in Aqua leaving, she wanted to do more, but couldn’t because there simply wasn’t any time to do it in. Kiara I believe also said that - she could have had a 3D live for her birthday, but it would have meant not having the slot for some other milestone that was coming up. Specifically talking about how scheduling lined up rather than budget. ....I think it was Kiara....it could have been Bae or Ollie. I remember *red* anyway.

>#BelieveTalents
>HOWEVER
>We also need to recognize the biases in some of the people that spoke
>up who 1) live in Japan, 2) are incredible workaholics and are just
>built that way, 3) are some of THE top talents in the company and have
>their careers taking off.

Yet they also acknowledge that they've run into some of the same issues that we're told are driving others to withdraw or graduate, such as frustration over having projects they worked on being canceled, paying out of pocket for things they wanted to do, and not being 100% onboard with the direction of the company.

>Foreign members have spoken up on how the multi-month travel each year
>has been really hard on them, or have needed various time off because
>of being sick or are barely streaming as it is, or are bluntly at a
>lower tier and, in a corporate structure and when comparing themselves
>to their peers, can be afraid of turning down opportunities for fear
>of not getting them the next time.

I know it's anecdotal, but it seems like the people who are most frequently out on hiatus for illness or exhaustion...are the workaholics who have admitted that they did streams or even live events despite being mentally exhausted or physically ill. And then there are some (*couKaelagh*) who are infamous for doing a several hour collab, then turning around and spending another 12 hours working to 100% a game the day of release. And let's not forget that our favorite reaper gave herself permanent lung damage because she would not follow a doctor's advice and allow herself time to heal properly. And EN/ID Holomems complaining about the travel requirements is almost always followed by an "I'm moving to Japan!" announcement.

>It's probably also not "idol nonsense" keeping girls down but
>management permission, streaming permission, waste of time meetings,
>and other 'homework'.

Amusingly, the person who often bellyaches the loudest about "homework" is Kronii, who is also acknowledged as one of those most likely (perhaps after Sui-chan) to throw hands with management if she feels that they're asking/making her do things she doesn't want to do. And then there's the rookies who may have done karaoke streams or perhaps a little "dance" when they were indies but now are getting the full idol boot camp experience to perform on a live stage.

I think at this point I'm in agreement with Suisei, that if you choose not to believe those who've spoken up for the management and the company then who do we believe?

>I know it's anecdotal, but it seems like the people who are most
>frequently out on hiatus for illness or exhaustion...are the
>workaholics who have admitted that they did streams or even live
>events despite being mentally exhausted or physically ill. And then
>there are some (*couKaelagh*) who are infamous
>for doing a several hour collab, then turning around and spending
>another 12 hours working to 100% a game the day of release. And let's
>not forget that our favorite reaper gave herself permanent lung damage
>because she would not follow a doctor's advice and allow herself time
>to heal properly. And EN/ID Holomems complaining about the travel
>requirements is almost always followed by an "I'm moving to Japan!"
>announcement.
>
>Amusingly, the person who often bellyaches the loudest about
>"homework" is Kronii, who is also acknowledged as one of those most
>likely (perhaps after Sui-chan) to throw hands with management if she
>feels that they're asking/making her do things she doesn't want to do.
> And then there's the rookies who may have done karaoke streams or
>perhaps a little "dance" when they were indies but now are getting the
>full idol boot camp experience to perform on a live stage.

That's not really true. Nerissa and Shiori semi-recently complained about it and they're not moving to Japan any time soon. It's not clear that Shiori will even ever go back. It's possible it even played a part in Fauna deciding to quit, based on timing. Pretty sure Kiara will go back to stay but she's also not actually moving to Japan.

As for people out on hiatus...not really. The workaholics take a little time off but then come right back to streaming pretty soon. It's the ones that cognitive bias doesn't even have you think about who are out for awhile.

As for Kronii specifically...she's my oshi but she's also near the BOTTOM of holoEN in terms of streaming hours. She complains and she's just barely visibly around. Pro-rate Justice for half a year and you can see it's Gura at the bottom (obviously), Ame (graduated), Mumei (last gasp of school), Ina (visa fuck up and artist work), then Kronii.

One question about that VStats site that I couldn't find an answer for- how do they count streaming time for collabs? Is it just credited to the streamers doing POVs (I'd assume so, as that's a lot easier to pick up with a script)? Because if so, Kronii among others have done a fair amount of collabing-but-not-streaming-it, which may skew the numbers a bit.

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

Also, does it count unarchived? Kronii does those a good fair bit. I think only ERB does more of them.

Looks to me like the site is monitoring streams while they're broadcasting, so I wouldn't think archiving would matter.

-IA.

(received information not interpretable)

>One question about that VStats site that I couldn't find an answer
>for- how do they count streaming time for collabs? Is it just credited
>to the streamers doing POVs (I'd assume so, as that's a
>lot easier to pick up with a script)? Because if so,
>Kronii among others have done a fair amount of
>collabing-but-not-streaming-it, which may skew the numbers a bit.
>
>"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

You can be extremely generous and credit her with 50 unaccounted for hours of being in collabs but not streaming and she'd still only just squeak by Fauna. And it wasn't -that- high.

I'd go with 50 as a minimum rather than a maximum- that's only 4 hours a month, which is the amount she was there for Bae's 24-hour stream for example. Then there's fishing with Kaela (4.5 there alone), GTA where she didn't stream . . . Point is, she's still doing a solid amount of streaming.

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

There's really not that much more. Some amount of Don't Starve and Minecraft and one or two of the big collabs.

If you say so. She's got her 4 hours for this month though, just in the past 2 days (Minecraft and Buckshot Roulette).

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

Suisei John Wicked herself into Hololive, and into one of the top musical talents - not just in Cover, or among vtubers, but *in japan*, through focus commitment, and sheer fucking will. I wouldn't be surprised if she STILL owns almost of her IP - I'd say she has the least to lose from pissing off Management.

So yeah, at some point you just have to believe that they're not bullshitting you.

Looking to the graduates and terminations should also be a hint. When the company is terrible, the newly redebuted livers can't WAIT to start telling horror stories in thinly veiled hints. The worst I've seen from ex-Holos is generic corporate "you're limited and there's lots of permissions to worry about". That gives me three possible explanations - that I just haven't seen anyone talking about them, that Cover's NDAs are a LOT stricter, or there just kind of aren't any major problems.

>Looking to the graduates and terminations should also be a hint. When
>the company is terrible, the newly redebuted livers can't WAIT to
>start telling horror stories in thinly veiled hints.

Or you're Sayu and basically dare the company to come after your ass. But yeah, the whole mess with Selen/Doki at the beginning of the year did a lot to end the taboo about speaking out about bad companies and/or their practices. If anything, the phenomenon has been like victims of abusive relationships telling their stories to try to motivate others to escape their own toxic environments or to avoid them in the first place.

>The worst I've seen from ex-Holos is generic corporate
>"you're limited and there's lots of permissions to worry about".

One of the things Calli mentioned in her own thoughts the other day is that disagreeing about the "direction of the company" would make sense because there are almost 90+ talents at HL and they all have their own idea of what that direction should be. And that when you ideas are rejected because not enough people agree with you to dedicate the limited resources of the company to them, you can end up feeling that the company is moving in a direction you don't agree with.

>That gives me three possible explanations - that I just haven't seen anyone
>talking about them, that Cover's NDAs are a LOT stricter, or there just kind of
>aren't any major problems.

I think the problem that HL (and most corpo vtuber agencies) has is summed up by something I heard James May say the other day: "It started as a hobby and it's in danger of turning into a responsibility." Or, to put it more bluntly, vtubing was never meant to become an industry just as there was never meant to be a Terminator franchise.

Faunwell!

LAST EDITED ON Jan-03-25 AT 09:16 PM (EST)
 
Our favorite kirin graduated in a way that seems totally appropriate for her: Having short farewell chats with her friends, a short set of songs, and then a quiet farewell.

I'm not crying, you're crying.