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VTubers, or Virtual YouTubers, have become hugely popular content creators recently. With names such as Gawr Gura and Ironmouse gaining more recognition in the streaming world each day, VTubing is gradually becoming more and more mainstream as hundreds of thousands of fans flock to these popular streamers' Twitch or YouTube channels each day.
That said, the VTuber community has its fair share of controversies too. Here are some of the biggest scandals and controversies related to the VTubing community in 2022 in no specific order.
Note: This article reflects the opinion of the author.
Five times the VTuber community made headlines for controversies in 2022
1) Enna Alouette's casual racism while streaming
Affiliated to NIJISANJI EN, Enna Alouette made the news quite recently after clips were being shared on social media, like Twitter, in which Enna was heard presenting remarks about a certain stereotype. The clips in question show Enna talking very insensitively about fellow VTuber Kyo Kaneko's accent, and it caused quite some backlash.
The operative line that people pointed out as highly racist was when she described Kyo's voice with this comparison:
"Kinda tells me you maybe listen to too much Snoop Dogg"
After much backlash, Enna Alouette posted an apology on Twitter, took responsibility for generalizing and stereotyping, and explained that she was unaware of how insensitive she sounded at the time.
2) CookieSwirlC's VTuber debut sparks backlash
CookieSwirlC is an established YouTuber with over 17 million subscribers at the time of her VTube debut. She caused quite an outrage in the streaming community when she announced that she would be VTubing earlier this year. People online quickly criticized her for doing such a thing despite having a young audience, indicating how most viewers relate to virtual YouTubers with more adult content.
Debates raged on Twitter and Reddit about children's role in the community. That said, CookieSwirlC has successfully integrated her VTubing career with her average vlog-style content and is close to reaching the 19 million subscriber mark on her YouTube channel.
3) VTubers vs. other streamers over Twitch tag
Twitch uses separate tags such as IRL Streamer, Just Chating, and game-specific ones to help classify content on their site. Naturally, with virtual YouTubers gaining traction over the years, they have a separate tag. Trouble started in August when the Amazon-owned platform announced VTuber TAKEOVER, an event designed to promote virtual creators.
However, other streamers started abusing the tag to gain popularity vis-a-vis the event. Causing a lot of name-calling and controversy online as creators took to Twitter and other social media platforms to talk about the issue.
4) Quin69's rant against VTubers resulted in Iromouse and others getting hate comments
Quin69 is known for his controversial takes, which are often quite offensive toward a particular group of people. In March 2022, popular virtually animated creator Ironmouse claimed that some popular streamer's rant against their community was the reason for an influx of hate-filled comments during her stream:
"I think somebody ranted about VTubers on stream and said a lot of negative stuff, so now because of that we're getting an influx of people being mean in my chat."
Fans and viewers immediately joined the dots, realizing that the hate comments had started after Quin69's rant against the VTubing community, where he vehemently criticized them for masking themselves behind an animated figure:
"They're just cheating! They don't even need to do anything to look good, they pretend to be 13 and put on some fake, cringe voice and just create parasocial relationships..."
The clip went viral, currently sitting at an impressive 166K views. Indicating that a wide variety of people saw the clip and that there is a very playable connection between the two. This type of sentiment is not uncommon in streaming as many hold artificial avatars against the VTubing community.
5) Japanese VTubers stream adult content while playing Splatoon 3
In October, a group of Japanese virtual YouTubers was severely penalized for streaming sexually explicit content on their YouTube streams while playing Splatoon 3. Only after Nintendo's copyright strike did YouTube take down the first video, but clips of VOD still litter the internet.
By tweaking specific settings with the in-game ink, a particular streamer played full-fledged p*rn on their stream with the help of green screening. Kotaku reports that several active accounts have since been permanently removed from YouTube.
