Is the celebrity’s idea that the spring of virtual idols is coming?
2021-08-30 10:19:42Source: Yangtze Evening News
Recently, a large number of celebrities in the show business have collapsed due to violations of laws, regulations, and depravity. Fans have “collapsed” one after another, making it a very cautious thing to chase stars in reality. In recent years, the virtual idol market has been flourishing, and they leave work as soon as they are unplugged, which seems to be “controllable”. Against this background, some people believe that the spring of virtual idols may come. But there are voices that say it is not necessarily true.
Regarding “virtual idols”, it may be necessary to do a bit of popular science. Generally, they will add an attribute “two-dimensional” to them. Most of their audiences are “Generation Z” (mostly the generation born between 1995 and 2009) young people. In the Spring Festival Gala of 2021, the virtual idol “Luo Tianyi” once appeared on the CCTV stage, and “out of the circle” entered the mainstream field of vision. Generally speaking, virtual idols are based on algorithms, through painting, animation, CG technology, etc., to achieve non-real singing and dancing performances or other displays in virtual and real scenes. Since the advent of the concept of virtual idols, starting from Hatsune and Luo Tianyi, the form has been updated and iterated several times. Today’s virtual idols have become a product of the perfect combination of technology, business and culture, and group combinations have been developed from individuals, such as virtual The idol group A-SOUL, in addition to the group account on the social platform, each of the five members has more than one million followers on their sub-accounts.
The figure of virtual idols has begun to spread across various platforms such as station B, Weibo, Xiaohongshu, and iQiyi. It is reported that as of June this year, there were 32,412 virtual idols and anchors staying at station B, a year-on-year increase of 40%. “I am Ling from the future” is the personal profile of the virtual idol “Ling_LING” on social platforms. It debuted in May last year and has 10,000 fans. She has fine eyelids, light makeup, high upright buns, her own antiquity temperament, and her daily postings are no different from ordinary bloggers, visiting the Forbidden City, watching exhibitions, checking in, and occasionally drinking and chatting with friends. He also uses hot words, such as “high-quality selfies,” and so on. It has been featured in Vogue magazine, received car advertisements, and participated in variety shows. In addition, virtual idol blogger AYAYI even interacted with celebrities, posting matching photos and selfies like normal beauty and fashion bloggers. Real stars are full of uncertainty, so virtual idols can be artificially modified into “perfect idols”? not always. The repeated crashes of virtual idols show one point, “As long as they are manipulated by humans or set up by humans, there will be the possibility of “collapsed houses”.”
At present, virtual idols cannot be completely separated from real people. Due to the popularization and application of technology, most of the virtual idols will be matched with “people in the middle” (that is, the real voice actors behind the virtual idols) to control them. “Men in the Middle” also needs motion capture technology to cooperate with the live broadcast of virtual idols, MV videos, stage performances, etc., and in addition to the model expressions of operating virtual idols, it also needs to control the characters and leave symbolic impressions.
Some fans like virtual idols because of the on-site performance and potential of the “person in the middle”. On the other hand, because of the presence of people, they also bury the risk of “rollover”. For example, in an appearance of A-SOUL, the “people in the middle” did not understand the two-dimensional culture, which caused the representative person to set up a rollover; since A-SOUL is virtual, the first sentence of its daily release content is “( The words “Operation on behalf of delivery)” are still being manipulated by humans, which arouses many netizens’ disgust; Li Jiaqi and Luo Tianyi also appeared in the live broadcast of the goods, “Luo Tianyi false singing accident”, when the two interacted and finished the product advertising slogan. Later, Luo Tianyi performed a song and dance, but due to a technical failure, the audience only saw him but ignored it.
Looking at the accounts of multiple virtual idols, you will find that most of them have a function of “carrying goods”, in the final analysis, it is commercial realization. Like real stars, they are also prone to collapse. In addition, it also brings new problems: virtual idols cannot replace people in real life, and it is difficult to give consumers real feedback. For example, the virtual idol “Ling_LING” was complained by users as “unreal” after completing his first lipstick promotion. Users believe that the cosmetics and skin care products brought by virtual idols are inadequate and cannot truly express the experience of using the products. What makes it difficult for more netizens to accept is that the people of “Ling_LING” are set as Chinese girls who like Peking opera, calligraphy and Tai Chi national style culture, but they choose to cooperate with international big names that are not very compatible with Chinese culture.
In fact, there are still many “industry pain points” in the development of the virtual idol market. For example, those virtual bloggers who try to exist as ordinary people on social platforms often ask “why is there always an expression, especially fake” in their comments. Knowledgeable netizens replied that the cost of changing facial expressions is very high. It is reported that, generally speaking, the cost of a virtual idol to produce a song is about 100,000 yuan. If you combine songs, dances and MV content, the cost can reach 1 million yuan; if you want to hold a special concert of virtual idols, the cost can be as high as 20 million yuan. Many virtual idols’ social platforms have been silent for a long time. For example, in the finals of “Tomorrow’s Sons”, the virtual idol “Hertz”, who almost defeated Mao’s hard-to-reach, has been on Weibo for half a year; RICHBOOM, which appeared on “Summer of the Band 2”, was released. The response to the album was mediocre…….
Virtual idols are based on big data, algorithms, and customization to cater to the market and meet the needs of fans and commercial interests. The essence of virtual idols is to realize the self-projection of fan fantasy with virtual images. However, whether it is a real idol or a virtual idol, its foothold is “idol”, and it also faces the constraints of fans, the public, and supervision, and the development of virtual idols is full of multiple uncertainties due to a variety of human factors.
Yangtze Evening News/Ziniu News reporter Kong Xiaoping
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