>>102551494
Suspension of belief draws people in then the hardcore fans end up losing the plot when it gets too serious.
I'm going to recant my earlier statement and say they may as well be open about it for the protection of the fans. The thing is, people are often there to forget about how lonely they are and shit, not be reminded of it. it's a weird place where what draws people(cute seemingly available anime girl) incentivizes controversial behavior(i.e. lying). As a streamer that aims to grow their audience it can seem like shooting themselves in the foot.

I think a part of what made Hololive boom in the West as it did was this illusory "magic" of a suspension of disbelief. Most western fans hardly understood a lick of Japanese so they weren't simply streamers, they were "cute Japanese anime girls like from their anime!" It's when you would go from a casual fan to a hardcore fan that things get fuzzy.

In theory, suspension of disbelief is what the general type that would watch vtubers is looking for but playing a character for 500+ hours of streaming over time becomes more and more ((((untenable)))). And that's the key word, it becomes ((((untenable.))))

I don't think there's a scenario where the "magic" stays alive long term in a streaming context. It's better for pageantry, theater, and constructed content, not streams.

-It's easy to not care about "goofy" when you haven't spent 2 grand and 500 hours with them.
-It's easy to to not care about "goofy" when you haven't spent any money and you only catch 1 out of 5 streams.
I say this as a casual fan.
<<<Moral of the story: don't give money to streamers.>>>