Am I doing it? Am I finally doing it? No, I am not going to write my own song using Vocaloid. Perhaps that could be a project for the future, but not now. But I am going to commit to doing research about Vocaloid.Although it might seem as if I already commited to this long time ago, I always still had my…
Marrying your idol? I’m pretty sure some of you out there have dreamt of such a thing. Marrying your favorite virtual character? I don’t know about you, but my fantasies haven’t gone that far. Yet, there are people who actually want to make such a fantasy become a reality. Kondo Akihito, the man in the video, decided to get married to the…
Today, I am going to think ‘out loud’ again. Please bear with me. 213M Views in eight months. 25M Views in four weeks. Yonezu Kenshi, currently one of the most popular singers in Japan. To some these numbers might not mean a lot, but it is quite a stunning number of views for a Japanese artist. You’re probably thinking, so what? Well,…
In earlier posts (“Hatsune Miku,the idol who doesn’t exist” and later posts), I have written about Hatsune Miku being an idol that doesn’t exist, or referred to her as a ‘virtual idol’. On other websites, she also gets referred to as a ‘virtual idol’. But can we just make assumptions like that? In “The Physical and Social Reality of Virtual Worlds”, Philip…
In case you haven’t noticed yet, I have an incredible craving for music. I’m always ready for new album releases, new music video’s, new covers… I sometimes re-listen the music of artists that I do not listen to on a regular basis anymore, while the playlists of my current favorites continue to grow. I get up with music (my alarm is ‘Very…
In my last two posts, I talked about Hatsune Miku, Vocaloid and utaite (see “Hatsune Miku, the idol who doesn’t exist” and “Mere cover artists performing in Tokyo Dome?”). I wrote about how many lines are blurry within this community: copyrights, what is popular and how everyone can be both a fan and a creator. While utaite often are only one part…
Grab your headphones, take a seat, make yourself comfortable and join me on this YouTube deepdive tour. The upcoming music videos might not be your cup of tea at all, but I’d very much appreciate it if you gave it a chance and accompanied me while I show you around in this corner of the internet. Last week I wrote about Hatsune…
Although it has already been about a good ten years ago, there is no doubt that everyone remembers Nyan Cat. The pixelated cat flying through the sky followed by a rainbow out of its bum became a real sensation along with the annoying song in the background. I, too, was aware of this phenomenon. Even before I knew anything about the idol…