>>49560179There's 2 reasons that people watch VTubers, and both derive from anime -
1. They're entertaining and funny, which feels similar to watching a comedy anime e.g. "Asobi Asobase" or "Daily Life of Highschool boys".
2. They're cute and do fun things together with each other, which feels similar to watching a slice of life/high school anime e.g. Kiniro Mosaic, K-On, Bocchi the Rock etc.
Group #1 VTubers will naturally have the same buff as Group #2 if they're girls, but their audience ceiling will be ultra high thanks to appealing to a different genre of anime compared to Group #2 alone.
These VTubers often need to be at the top of their game in every single stream because the moment they stop being funny and entertaining, the audience that's there for #1 will gravitate to someone else. However girls will still have a small buff from Group #2 so male VTubers have to work twice as hard to be entertaining to retain their audience.
The CGDCT audience that watches them also know that their appeal is more than pure CGDCT so they won't be affected by male collabs, as long as they are still entertaining.
In Group #2 the girls themselves don't need to put that much effort into anything (although they CAN, which will often bring a new audience as well) just being there streaming for their audience is enough to satiate them.
Contrary to popular belief, people who watch this content don't self insert themselves into the group, they just derive some joy from the "Truman show"-esque nature of viewing the girls having fun with each other (pic rel).
They will naturally balk at males suddenly invading their comfy space and making things weird, because male-female interactions are fundamentally different from female-female interactions. Partly sexual and partly social in nature.
EN VTubers in general lean heavily into the Group #2 audience, because most of them cannot be entertaining and funny over longer periods of time. Hence male collab controversies will affect them more.
Now, along with the different audience types, there's also a divide in audience RESPONSE to male collabs and other forms of controversy/drama.
The Japanese prefer not to inconvenience their streamer with drama from antis using their criticism as a stick to beat their oshi with, so they adopt the mindset of "if I don't like it, I don't watch" and hope that their oshi will notice the metrics and adjust accordingly. They do shitpost about it on 5ch though, and if their oshi browses 5ch even more reason to do so since they could find the "real" feelings of her fans.
If there's any non-5ch complaints it'll usually be on marshmallows or mengen, where the girl themselves can pick and choose what comments to respond to (and the audience can make the decision accordingly). And usually only when their oshi asks for feedback/criticism do they provide it. The majority of the audience adopting this mentality means that any outsider trying to stoke a controversy stands out like a sore thumb and can be asked to fuck off easily.
Western fans are a lot more entitled (in both ways) where if they don't like something, they WILL talk about it openly under Youtube comments, twitter tags and anonymously, with no care for how their words could start drama or be used as sticks to beat their oshi with.
Because unlike the Japanese, westerners prioritize themselves over their oshi. Hence the visibility of their opinion is more important than the feelings of their oshi.
Obviously the same feeling goes the other way with the "my streamer can do no wrong" types of viewers, who get into fights with these vocal fans on the comments/twitter, shit on them, humiliate them and try to get them to leave. These types are often casual fans however, and so not really financially needed, but the streamers prefer not to stoke controversy themselves, and so don't call them out on being shitty to their fanbase (notable exception was Kronii who did once defend her fans from "outsiders" shitting on them in her chat).
Once again, this lack of care about drama, self-centeredness along with western audiences leaning more into the Group #2 audience will naturally result in more controversy about male collabs in the west side.
Number 1 rule of any streamer though, is "Don't lie to your fans about important things". This is the majority of the reason for all the supposed "muh male collab" controversy in the west.
See : Mori jumping into a Vesper collab right after their collab ban expired (earlier than usual thanks to "popular demand"), Bae collabing with Holostars and Tempus etc. which had zero controversy. Because Mori and Bae were already known entities.
Kronii on the other hand, got controversy because she lied to her fans and flip flopped multiple times before settling into where she is now.