The pseudonymous art of VTubing : an ethnographic study of indie VTubers performing in English-speaking contemporary online spaces

Although independent— “indie”—VTubers make up the majority of the VTubing subculture, they are collectively studied alongside corporate VTubers as part of the existing entertainment industry. As such, previous research has been primarily concerned with how the content produced through VTubing reinforces or diverges from existing understandings of idol and fan culture without considering how indie VTubers may differ from corporate VTubers in function and purpose. By recognising the organisation of indie VTubers as distinct from corporate VTubers, this thesis argues for an alternative assessment of the indie VTubing subculture from a grassroots perspective. To understand how the indie VTubing community functions differently from corporate VTubers, I conducted six months of online ethnographic fieldwork, performing and interacting under the indie VTuber persona of Kilo (GrandStarSuperMa) across multiple social media platforms. Combined with eight interviews with existing community members and social media textual data analysis, this study assesses how and why indie VTubers adopt virtual avatars to create content online. The findings offer critical insight into the unique ways in which indie VTubing allows individuals to take control of their online representation and in the process, generate connection through community. In reframing the adoption and use of virtual avatars as a form of pseudonymous performance, this thesis ultimately argues that indie VTubing enables the individual to selectively filter their actual identity and allow them to freely assert creative autonomy over their online presence, the successful performance of which would eventually result in the materialisation of a supportive social community distinct from those of non-pseudonymous content creators.