Weekly NewsDrop #15—Week 51

Happy Holidays, everyone!—This is our last Weekly NewsDrop for the year 2022. The cold spell has brought most of us to our sickbeds, but that won't stop us from gathering the biggest news of the week.

Surely you won't read a newsletter during the holidays, so we're making this release a few days earlier. That way, you can take your time off the screen and with your families.

On this issue, we talk about platforms: Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and even Skeb. Read on to stay in the know.

We are bound to make adjustments to our newsletter to keep up with the times, so make sure your thought counts by sending us an email or tweeting back at us. Our contact details are listed at the end of this post.

The Latest on NewsDrop

• We have concluded our Spotlight Month featuring VTubers from all over the globe, and the last in the series is Ywuria.
• NecroNews' weekly recap returns as it shares the latest news about a lost media found.
• Mika reviews The Backrooms -Survival-; and The Skull posts his review of Ixion.
• Ted writes about Vienna entry to Loaded.gg as its VTuber talent, as well as the introduction of Japan's meta grandma project.

YouTube released an update on comment spam and abuse last December 14, which detailed its progress in:

• Improving spam detection in comments,
• Improving bot detection in live chat, and...
• Launching a new feature warning users who are detected violating community guidelines, and imposing timeouts for up to 24 hours for those who leave multiple abusive comments.
• This update is first reflected for English comments, and YouTube hopes to roll out the update "to more languages in the coming months."

The Google-owned platform said that it has removed over 1.1 billion spam comments in the first six months of the year as a result of the improved automated detection systems.

Unfortunately, the update is affecting some chatters on VTuber streams who were wondering why they can no longer chat on YouTube.

Skeb, an artwork commission platform frequented by VTubers, went down today. The platform reported on Twitter at 11:30 am Japan time that they are investigating the cause.

• The platform is currently moving data to a new system, but because the data being moved is enormous, it is possible that the migration reach midnight today.
• As courtesy to artists, Skeb requests with delivery deadlines between today until December 24 will be extended to December 25, 11:59 pm Japan time.
• Skeb has provided details of their server migration on their Medium blog, in Japanese.
• Skeb disclosed that over 30 terabytes of stored data and 100 gigabytes of its database are being deployed to the new server.

Twitch Recap 2022 is currently running on the platform's official Twitter account, and one tweet drew a lot of attention from VTubers:

A harmless tweet recognizing the role of VTubers on Twitch—the top 5 tag of the year—was question over its use of words, with VTubers, fans and even newsmen alike ganging up on the message... and here we are thinking, "say sike bro."

Twitter has been making changes lately, starting with its head Elon Musk seeking the next person to replace him following a popular vote in the platform, followed by the addition of stock charts in all cashtags.

• A functional change has already happened as people can no longer see which device or app a tweet was posted, but...
• ...the more important change at the moment is the display of View Counts for each tweet. Musk explains that tweets are read around a hundred times more than they are liked.
• This addition "shows how much more alive Twitter is than it may seem," adding that over 90% of users read tweets but don't interact.
• Twitter users also voted to put the view count after the Like button instead of before the reply button.

Our Take: Twitter has improved users' access to their analytics with this move. The thing is, the increased visibility of the view count may pose harm to those who live in attention.

• Two years ago, Instagram removed visible likes in their platform, and now only users can see the number of likes in their own posts.
• The reason? As told to PBS NewsHour, "anxiety and social pressures that come from the app “are becoming more acute, particularly with young people, particularly in a mobile-first world.”" (our emphasis)

What to do: Virtual lore master Raina has a hot take on this: "Our relationship with socmed and what its metrics mean to us needs some SERIOUS reexamination, and shouldn't be dictated/led by the platforms."

Agency Headlines

Holotalk with Amane Kanata has concluded! Takanashi Kiara recovered well to host the program.

• It was pointed out as the longest of all Holotalk streams—2 hours, 30 minutes, surpassing her interview with Shiranui Flare streamed 10 months ago.
• Go straight to 56:52 to hear them talk about idols.

Following their presence at the MyHolo TV booth inside Comic Fiesta last weekend, Wonders.ai is elevating the VTuber experience by launching the Connect V app for Android and iOS in partnership with Phase Connect.

• Connect V was put to the test as Amanogawa Shiina hosts a karaoke stream both on YouTube and on the app.
• The app is currently available for Android 10+ and iOS 5.5+, subject to hardware capabilities.

Nijisanji EN's not done making their tier lists of themselves—Millie Parfait and Fulgur Ovid leads the fray, but Enna Alouette wants to bail out.

• Stay tuned on January 7 as DJ Ember appears for the first Nijisanji music cover showcase produced by (and financed) by Selen Tatsuki.

Hololive Quiz is now in English! Exam vouchers are now available for JPY4,500 (around US$34).

• We got the results from the recently held Hololive Mahjong match stream: Ookami Mio stood on top of all competitors. r/Hololive has a summary of the tourney.
• While we are waiting for the return of the WAH, Ninomae Ina'nis is already teasing what could be her next song—with Camellia!

In Thailand: MaruYa's 10th Anniversary Event was held successfully, with fans of Polygon Project in full force for a photo-op.

In Other News...

• NoriPro's Nekozeno Shin revealed his new clothes, but the more important thing is that he's doing a collab stream with fellow TCB siblings Holostars' Kanade Izuru and Nijisanji EN's Ike Eveland on January 28.
• Back to Kiara, she assures fans that Nabi's channel was not hacked. This comes after her channel was devoid of content.
• Shylily tests a YouTube members-only stream, which was not received well by her fans. She has apologized to everyone as she asks her partner manager for other ways to interact.
• Back to MyHolo TV, they released another notice to everyone to report any account impersonating as their talent or staff, the second time since January.
• Premios Esland, the Spanish-speaking counterpart of The Streamy Awards which launched this year, adds the "VTuber of the Year" category to next year's awards.
• Let's skip to the good part: Kyo Kaneko cooked a great-looking rice dish with Enna Alouette in their offline collab. Watch it.
• Takahata will be the master of ceremonies for... a wrestling match? He's going to host Pandemonium Pro Wrestling's Holiday in Hollywood coming soon on IWTV.

Up Next: A Double Feature Special

The Weekly NewsDrop will be back on its new schedule, Saturday January 14 (subject to change).

Before that, we have prepared a double feature on December 31 and January 9. We asked several personalities covering the VTuber scene outside Japan what are the biggest stories they've seen, and what are they seeing for the community in 2023.

Look forward to our next update, and we wish you all the best this coming year!

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