Indie VTubers

Vtubing is actually what got me into streaming in the first place! I started hanging out with a certain vtuber on twitch, got to know them, and after learning about several pieces of vtuber technology, I became very interested in how it worked, and how some people were able to achieve such high quality tracking.

I became more fascinated the more I learned, and after helping them improve their setup for a while, I decided I wanted to try streaming myself, mainly to see how far I could push the tech. I really enjoy improving our setups, it's been a really fun time.

My and my friend had been streaming for about 5 years beforehand. We'd done the mythical character approach almost the entire time (A demon and a paladin streaming video games).

I'd appeared a few times on camera "as myself", but we switched to vTubing as an immersion boost to the idea of the characters we were playing; and because we normally didn't appear on camera, having a model let our viewers see our expressions better.

Not quite the target you were thinking of, probably, but the sub is a bit too dead for my tastes, so:

As a fan who never understood the whole parasocial thing and was turned off by what I saw as the typical Streamer stuff, Streamers covering stuff I was interested in is how I found them. The whole trying to be lewd and parasocial thing most VTubers seem to go for still turns me away from most. Basically, I’m consuming most content like I would any other video on YouTube.

virtualharby would be the first. During the last r/place event, an obsessive "fan" of hers decided to use bots to place her face into the location a game sub was already using. Basically, small community vs 1 guy with bots. She called him out and berated him on stream, then got a small shoutout in the sub’s pixel art. I followed her and started watching if a Stream seemed interesting. (Mostly does game programming or plays games on stream.) She’s still the only one whose Streams I occasionally watch live. Due to her having ~20 viewers, the parasociality is less of an issue for me, I suppose. Since chatters can actually talk with her like normal people, viewing her as an online acquaintance works for me.

I only really sort-of got into VTubers proper due to being recommended a couple shorts by Filian, and the prevalent lewdness of the community seems to weird her out as much as it does me. I’m still only watching some VODs or edited videos, though. Mostly her collabs with other people like her friends LaynaLazar and ProjektMelody. Also got into some cooking videos by Onigiri. Check out this great song by Auteru Tori.

There have been a couple YouTubers who I don’t count as getting me into VTubers. I’m not watching their streams, if they have any at all.

Drumsy runs a virtual reality show (mostly comedic sketches). VRchat is the medium, but I don’t think his group are streamers.
RedRisley is a streamer, but I’m only watching edited gameplay footage, and she’s also considering switching to being a "normal" streamer.
Thrillseeker does VR tech related content, but rarely Streams.
Phia’s The Virtual Reality Show and TVRS Studio feature VTubers on occasion, including an interview with Filian, but are more about VRChat culture, communities and people.

I am just getting into it. At first I was weirded out by the sexualization of the characters but some people are just monsters or stuff like that.

I want to stream and I think people gravitate more to streams when expressions are on camera but I don't want to show my face for privacy reasons. So that seems like a good compromise.