Abstract

BAITELLO JR, NORVAL  and  SOARES, GABRIEL. Virtual Youtubers: Between body and image. Inmediac. Comun [online]. 2023, vol.18, n.1, pp.145-170.  Epub June 01, 2023. ISSN 1510-5091.  https://doi.org/10.18861/ic.2023.18.1.3341.

Virtual Youtubers (Vtubers) are streamers who use an animated avatar instead of using their own face. By hiding their identity, they are free to recreate themselves as fantastic beings. This is possible thanks to the images used by these strstreamers’ bodies to approach each other with the objective of grasping our attention, given that they need to be seen to avoid being forgotten, as affirmed by the iconophagy theory of Norval Baitello Jr. New technologies allow Vtubers to interact with other people directly through a chat service, and this interaction is produced constantly. Thus, the line separating “I” and “You” blurs completely. Vtubers can be the best example of what Vilém Flusser calls the artificial man, one whose life is deliberate. Regarding this, the article focuses on observing communities online with the objective of analyzing Vtubers’ practise and establishing whether it carries any change in the relationship with the “other” and with the image and whether that image has new characteristics. As a hypothesis, we hold that Vtubers are a new type of image that becomes meaningful only when it is near to human bodies. Owners of these bodies become part of a fantasy world where their physical characteristics do not matter and they can be whatever they want. Therefore, Vtubers would be creatures who move between body and image.

Keywords : Virtual Youtuber; streaming; artificialization of the humans; trick; iconophagy.

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