Sort of, but dumber. At least a tulpa is a display of a quirk of the human mind that it can create an imaginary friend that feels like a different person, and isn’t done for the titillation of strangers. Vtubers are just the laziest automation of a ventriloquist act.
They don’t learn the subtle art of throwing their voice and looking like they’re paying attention, practicing a skill like a magician. They don’t even engage sincerely with an esoteric religious tradition like tulpamancers. They just run a software to control the digital dummy and do the exact same thing every other streamer does. Give it a few more years and they won’t be anime girls, it’ll all be AI Pokimane bodies with AI modulated voice changers played by the 50 dudes who sold their souls, their cars, and their neighborhood children to get ahold of the only 100 consumer graphics cards to leak out of the Nvidia pipeline.
At least a fursuit is something someone put real time, energy, and talent into bringing to existence. I have no respect for someone who just runs a piece of software someone else made to change how they look. It’s Instagram filters but dumber.
those models aren’t free. nor are they magic. to get a good one you need to commission somebody or have the extensive knowledge required to create one yourself
![[Flork of Cows] Tulpa](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/e2de2a16-037b-45a8-8091-db1e541231f2.jpeg){kind=link}
Sort of, but dumber. At least a tulpa is a display of a quirk of the human mind that it can create an imaginary friend that feels like a different person, and isn’t done for the titillation of strangers. Vtubers are just the laziest automation of a ventriloquist act.
They don’t learn the subtle art of throwing their voice and looking like they’re paying attention, practicing a skill like a magician. They don’t even engage sincerely with an esoteric religious tradition like tulpamancers. They just run a software to control the digital dummy and do the exact same thing every other streamer does. Give it a few more years and they won’t be anime girls, it’ll all be AI Pokimane bodies with AI modulated voice changers played by the 50 dudes who sold their souls, their cars, and their neighborhood children to get ahold of the only 100 consumer graphics cards to leak out of the Nvidia pipeline.
It’s a digital fursuit, it’s gonna be okay
At least a fursuit is something someone put real time, energy, and talent into bringing to existence. I have no respect for someone who just runs a piece of software someone else made to change how they look. It’s Instagram filters but dumber.
have you ever actually been around a vtuber?
those models aren’t free. nor are they magic. to get a good one you need to commission somebody or have the extensive knowledge required to create one yourself
so yeah similar to a fursuit in that regard
Many (most?) furries don’t make their own fursuits.
Furries also do not make their own fursuits.
They pay +1000€ for someone else to change how they look. It’s like clothing & make-up but “dumber”.
Some of them are coding their own.
Those few get some credit, but I doubt that’s the norm.