>>81834633I don't watch Phase Connect that much anymore, but I distinctly remember almost every member playing up the "Socially awkward girl, but I'm glad I have you guys" schtick. They would also frequently talk about how much they love their viewers and depend on them etc. It might not be 100% GFE, but they definitely lean into the parasocial aspects HARD. Even their top talents like Pippa leaned into it heavily in the past while now trying to distance themselves now that they've got a larger fanbase and don't need to cater to it. Overall, I just find it disgusting as a practice because it's predatory. Yes, all Vtubers feed into it to some extent, but the professional ones try to maintain distance as an entertainer -> viewer relationship while ones like PhaseConnect actively push that they're much closer than that. Especially because the girls interact with their Discord chatters and rumors of certain mod interactions and pasts have a lot more evidence than they can deny. Especially someone like Pippa who likes to claim to be a lonely, NEET, girl failure but has had previous stuff leak where she was a typical UWU type E-girl with a boyfriend. At this point I'm just waiting for AI to improve so I can cut the woman aspect out of Vtubing. Although some entertainers like Korone and Pekora are still top tier and would be impossible to replace.
