- They got good dance moves. - What is this?

It's very visually appealing, to say the least.

I used to watch a lot of Kizuna AI.

I don't think she started the VTuber thing, but she popularized it for sure.

- Oh! They brought people into it. - Oh my gosh! They're so cute!

VTubers, or Virtual Tubers, are anime girls, usually, who livestream a variety of content, including AMAs, react videos, singing, let's plays, and so much more.

I've heard the term before, but I have never seen them; I don't really know much about them.

People that really know about VTubers are people who enjoy anime in general.

So, it makes sense for people to not really know what it is if they don't watch too much anime or don't know about anime communities.

So, let's take a look behind the scenes of a VTube shoot from an independent content creator, CodeMiko, on Twitch, so we can see how this works.

Okay, please, yes, I would love to know more.

Hello! Okay, hi. How's it going? So, there's a lot of new people here today.

You know, it would be kind of cool to give you guys a quick... quick demo of CodeMiko.

Hello! My brain is melting ⏤ okay, well, that's not good.

What? I wanna do this!

Wow! They can even show the whole entire body. That is crazy.

Well, how else do you think I got into this chair?

Oh, my God, that is so interesting.

It's so crazy how, like, realistic that looks, like, every little bit, like, the blinks and the smiles and the stutters; everything is highlighted.

That's very interesting.

I know that, like, it's taken until the iPhone X for us to have things like Animojis and stuff like that, and this, like, blows that out the water.

Wow, that's, like, really cool.

- Do you wanna see it? Here! - Oh, no, no, no, no.

- Look! It's just... it's just my shoe. - No, no, no, it's okay.

Oh, wait, Miko just... just showing feet.

- Yeah. What? It's ⏤ that ⏤ they're nice shoes!

CodeMiko's hilarious. Oh my ⏤ I love how chat just goes across her chest; gives people the... uh, people a reason to look, I guess.

But I like how high-quality her room is, you know, it's super... it's super, uh, well-lit, everything.

Her model is very well animated; the effort she puts in is really cool.

That's crazy, and I also love how, like, she is supportive and she shows, like, how she does it and, like, her process behind it all, so it's not just a mystery in this space.

Everyone's sitting behind their computer; they have nothing better to do.

And everyone's just kind of trying to discover new things, find out things that they like, things that they don't.

And, I guess, as, you know, you have so much time at home, I guess these YouTubers find a way to take their content to the next level.

Audiences love that and find it intriguing to see something that they've never seen before.

So I'm not surprised that they are doing really well in the YouTube scene.

Honestly, I call it right now, anais calls it, that's gonna be the future, like, I kid you not.

-Oh, hi! - Is she good?

Hello, everyone.

Move you?

Okay... okay.

Please look respectfully. Well, what do you think?

Oh, feet! Oh, feet, feet, feet, feet! Sorry, sorry.

Feet! Do you like it? Do you like feet?

No, no, no. No. No. Okay, yeah. Don't ⏤ please, no!

I don't wanna see her feet. I'm good.

Super interesting; very out of the normal for me, like, I'm...

I don't watch anime, but it's interesting to see where the direction of content is moving.

I will say that it also, like, distorts body image, obviously.

The people that already do it now are creating themselves in this likeness that they would want to be.

However, because anime is so, like, extra ⏤ and I'm not gonna be light on that ⏤ anime is very extra.

Honestly, you can achieve anything with, like, cosmetic surgery, obviously.

Would I recommend it? No.

It's not gonna affect us that much, our generation, like Gen Z, Gen X, or whatever.

But I, like, third-graders growing up to this?

That's what it's gonna affect, and that's what you have to think about.

But, I mean, who wouldn't wanna be an anime character?

If you do do this, at the end of the day, I think that you just need to know that this is not real.

Like, as much as you want it to be, it's not.

That has to push through everything else.

Does it make you feel like you're living in the future to, like, know that this is, like, something that's, like, becoming big right now?

It's crazy, like, we're moving so fast, and there's just new things coming out every single year, every single day, every second.

Like, so scary, like, what are we gonna be doing in 10... 10 years from now?

Not even! Like, two years from now.

I bet it'll be completely different. Oh, my gosh. I'm scared. I don't like the future.

There are VTube groups that are basically like girl groups.

One of the most popular one right, right now is called Hololive.

They get together as a group and they do all kinds of videos.

- All right, cool. - Okay, okay, come on.

Come, my wife.

Oh, my gosh! They're literally, like, in character and everything.

This is so funny.

That's kinda ⏤ that's interesting; character playing a character.

They're literally just singing.

All right, these are all, like, the... the Hololive English, or some of them are the Hololive English, 'cause I see, uh, Gawr Gura, I see Watson.

Oh, my gosh! They're literally, like, in character and everything.

I think it adds, like, a different element to the content; it makes it more interesting.

Ok, so even with the popularity of Hololive, most VTube content is still only Japanese.

There is an entire community of translators who work tirelessly for free to translate hundreds of hours of VTuber content so that people all over the world can enjoy it.

It's kinda, like, weird. Give it a... maybe a few more years, and you never know what could happen; it'll probably be super westernized and stuff.

You know what? See, I like this.

Turning yourself into a real-life anime, who wouldn't want that?

So, would you do this?

I mean, hey, I would like to s... see myself as, like, my own character.

Yeah, that would... that would be pretty cool.

See what I look like if I, like, I had a body suit or VTuber-type thing.

What would your VTuber look like?

Yeah, now, that's the thing; I don't know what I wanna look like.

I just, like, I wanna look like something, but I... I don't know.

I mean, I wouldn't mind looking like an anime character.

But I feel like... kinda like the first video, where it was, like, very close to looking like a human...

I feel like something like that and just similar to, like, a human, like, to see how I look in virtual form, and, like, I could customize, like, my "outfits", like, virtually and all that; that alone is just fascinating to me.

I would want to. It would be more like a game to me, 'cause, you know, I think I'm pretty genuine, pretty real.

I'm an open book, like, my family and friends know that, like, I really just say whatever, like, I really don't care.

So, I feel like I'd be okay with this.

It's all about your mind... your mindset, but, like, this is a lot of fun, but you could get cared away.

I think my avatar would look pretty much like me, um... maybe just the little fixes that I would wanna do on myself personally.

If anything were to be creative about my avatar, it would be its outfits.

I am a creative person with my outfits in general on a daily.

It would be the outfits that would be out of this world.

Like, I'd have, like, the biggest gowns or, like, rock star boots or something, like skull head or I don't even know. Just go wild.

Not something I would really wanna do.

It would be cool to try out for a quick, hot second, but I personally like to just be myself and not have a character to portray me.

I guess, just different interests, but it is fascinating.

That's a big part of VTubers, is not showing their face, and they're really adamant about that, 'cause they have their own, like, lore, personality, all that kind of stuff that they... that they put into the character.

So, they don't wanna ruin that with... with seeing behind it.

Obviously, we know it's fake; we know there's people behind it.

It's an anime character on top of someone speaking.

It's... it's not... Obviously, it's not real and you know it's not.

Yeah, it's a character. Yeah, it's someone that you really enjoy.

They have their... their own personality, and they wanna show that; they don't wanna show their personality, uh, obviously, it's a little bit of both; you mix and match.

But all that goes into one when watching VTubers, and that's... that's the appeal of 'em.

Okay, well, I'm already half Filipino, half Japanese, so I do have some, like, cute, little Japanese features to me.

I want somebody to, like, make me, like, see how they would think my personality would match somebody, like, match a VTube character, like, because I feel like I wouldn't be good at, like, making myself.

Like, I make people do my Bitmojis and Animojis for me, because I know, like, if I make it myself, I'm gonna make myself 20 times prettier than I already am.

So, I need to humble myself and I make people... other people do it.

Thanks for watching this episode of React.

Let us know what you'd like us to react to next in the comments.

If you liked this episode... - Be sure to hit the Like button and subscribe.

Bye, guys!

- Hey, guys. It's Sierra, React producer. If you wanna get to know us and our reactors a little bit better, then you should follow us on social media, @FBE and @React. Bye, guys!