>>35078891I do think you are on to something, regardless of how sincere this is. I'm no stranger to shitting on /vsoc/ myself, but the more and more I see the more I think it's inevitable that VTubing, in merging with larger streaming/internet video culture, becomes like this. Thus, I would posit it less as a matter of culture changing, and more just an abberation being merged back into the whole.
Obviously, I think there's a middle ground. "Viewersona" is kind of a silly term, but someone using an OC as their avatar and a representation of their work as an artist or content creator has been a thing for decades now. That's the direction I think VTubing from a viewer's perspective will take; you can already see the marked difference in modern viewer to chuubas, who are much more likely to be as I described, versus the OG and early chuuba converts that mostly completely reincarnated their internet presence into their VTuber avatar.