Virtual idols and singers are becoming increasingly popular in China & Japan

guest · Dec 22, 2020

Virtual idols take to the real-life stage in China
December 22, 2020
https://today.rtl.lu/news/business-and-tech/a/1634073.html

Liu Jun has long been a fan of a Chinese star called Amy, a teenage pop singer with red hair whose autograph he treasures -- and who only exists in the digital world.

On Saturday "Amy" won a breakthrough virtual talent show in China, where computer-generated entertainers perform in front of real-life judges and tens of millions of online viewers.

"You can't see what they are like in real life, so you can have more fantasies about them," said 28-year-old Liu, who has attended more than ten of Amy's concerts and fan events in recent years.
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Although the virtual idol concept originated in Japan, these digital avatars are now stealing airtime in China, where they appear on TV shows, billboards and even news programmes.

They now command growing fanbases -- research from iQiyi estimates an audience of 390 million nationwide.
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Since virtual idols live and die through the strength of their technology, the risk of embarrassing technical failures is high.
In one awkward show appearance, only Amy's cap appeared onstage.

"It's so embarrassing that I don't think it's fit for humans to watch," complained one viewer on social media.
But the show's creators have batted away criticism.
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guest · Dec 22, 2020

Japanese virtual idol Hatsune Miku joins Taobao as a live streaming ambassador for upcoming 618 festival
June 9, 2020
https://www.scmp.com/tech/e-commerc...idol-hatsune-miku-joins-taobao-live-streaming

Hatsune Miku, a popular virtual idol and singer from Japan, has joined Alibaba’s Taobao as an ambassador for this year’s 618 midyear shopping festival, as live streaming continues to take a bigger slice of online consumption in China.

Users of the e-commerce platform will be able to use their own virtual images generated on Taobao to chat, dance, or take photos together with Miku, according to a post on Taobao’s Weibo account on Monday. Miku has already ranked as one of the most popular celebrities on the platform, with over 10 million page visits and virtual gifts.
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Live streaming e-commerce is becoming big business in China with celebrities, tech founders and news anchors all trying it out at a time when physical shopping in malls has been discouraged by the recent health crisis.

On April 22, Chinese virtual idol Luo Tianyi joined China’s most influential live streaming host Li Jiaqi [...] They were displayed next to a human live streamer, and helped to describe the features of products such as coloured contact lenses, electric cookers and body washes.
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“Virtual and interactive entertainment is a hot trend nowadays,” said a spokesperson for Taobao Live, the platform’s live streaming arm. “We are dedicated to introducing various pan-entertainment virtual hosts to enrich our content and innovate in user interactions.”
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New K-pop girl group Aespa features human and virtual members, and comes from Red Velvet managers SM Entertainment
October 29, 2020
https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/k-po...k-pop-girl-group-aespa-red-velvet-managers-sm

A new era for K-pop arrives this week with the introduction of Aespa, a South Korean girl group made up of both human and virtual members.

At today’s World Cultural Industry Forum in Seoul, SM Entertainment founder Lee Soo-man said Aespa represented the launch of the SM Culture Universe (SMCU) and would feature both real-world members and digital avatars that would interact in various real-life and digital environments. According to Lee, Aespa heralded “the beginning of the future of entertainment”.
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