>>20757402I kinda feel the same way, but finding someone early that you know is gonna make it is a magical thing. years ago I was going down the rabbit hole of how-to guides on youtube and came across a YT channel of this older dude who lived in the woods and made toys. technically not vtuber related I guess, but he had a similar gimmick, where he played a character and had a little puppet avatar to represent the character, and never showed face/skin to keep the person behind it separate. he only had ~1,000 subscribers at the time, but all his videos were well edited, fun, and you could tell he put a lot of work and passion into his production. he would respond to every comment, even when his channel started growing and he'd have dozens of them, and talked to a lot of his audience through email and DMs, helping them with their craft projects and discussing different methods for making things. he even had a PO box for a while, and everything that got sent to him, big or small, got showcased on his channel, because he didn't want to show favoritism. it was a great time with a great small-knit community around him, but of course, something like that doesn't last forever.
eventually he started becoming better known, with a couple videos getting hit with the algorithm and a lucky shoutout from a surprisingly big creator, he jumped from a couple thousand subs to tens of thousands, eventually to 100,000. by now he was getting 100+ comments, so he stopped responding to all of them. at around 200,000 he shut down his PO box because someone staked out the box trying to catch him in person, and he couldn't possibly showcase everything anymore either. he's sitting around half a million now, and just announced that he's gonna have to shut down his email because it's become too much to handle. the once small knit community has dissolved into a much larger conglomerate of fans, who fill the comment section pining for a once-common response from the creator.
it's going to happen to the people you love here too. as the numbers increase, the interaction will decrease, and the audience will transition from "acquaintances" to "fans", and this will be the good end! as much as I hate to see the small communities fade away, I've never regretting seeing people who deserve success make it, and I know some of you here are going to make it too, so I wish only the best for ya along the way. godspeed, anons
