SFsaltfish

good lord...

Hatsune Miku - The False Idol and Her Fandom as a Body Without Organs

Hatsune Miku is a Vocal synthesiser, a commercially produced software that comes paired with an illustrated girl as the “performer.” People use this software to create digital performances, borrowing Hatsune Miku’s image and posting them online, where they often evolve as they are circulated. Her image is free to share, adapt and create with - the surrounding “Vocaloid fandom” uses this image and voice to explore and navigate complex and heavy topics, often extremely personal, such as grief, sexuality, depression and relationships. While there are some works in this area, they are lacking in depth and evidence, which is the gap I aim to fill. This study aims to examine the appeal of using Hatsune Miku as a vehicle for these complex representations, looking further at the surrounding fandom. Using semi-structured interviews on participants from fandom sites such as Tumblr, gaining a breadth of qualitative information on their connection to Miku, I am to investigate my hypothesis that the connections between fandom and figure is comparable to that of a Body Without Organs, which in this case, occurs with ease, due to Miku’s freely accessible image, prosumption encouraging background and narrative lacking nature.

Back in April 2024, I was interviewed for an academic paper on Hatsune Miku and the VOCALOID fandom. The author finally shared the finished work with me at the very end of 2024, and I've created a site where you can read the paper in full!

玉箒

time to open my mouth again

SPECIAL GIRLS STORY is closer to done than ever. i wasn't gonna post until then but my mind got worse and worse, so development been rocky since autumn, cornered myself but im trying to come out of it. heres the first step.

i put a bunch of art into a digital briefcase on itch. if anyone feels interested in helping the VN come out..-> here <- situation explained better there too. i also lowered the price of HLPT to 7 bucks (not a sale)

i deleted my accounts on tw i think for good..nothing can make me comfortable posting there again. its probably not wise to cut the social media chord completely so tumblr is a good balance? for now. at least art has a good life span here.

its nice people are still interacting with my stuff. thank you all so much. i feel insanely lucky despite the difficulties.

i'll try to post painting here again and see how it feels but since my art got saucier it seems risky. either way im going to make a new gallery on my website soon and put my liquidliar painting series up there some time in the next two months. any updates i'll relay them here. SPECIAL GIRLS STORY will remain my priority until its released tho, i won't be able to juggle much communication until then. im aiming for before winter(a generous timeframe considering what i have left to do). giving up not an option, in the words of my teenage self.. "you are about to fucking win bitch" ..byebye for now

This summarizes Detective Conan pretty well

餅