>>1340802No need to be coy about attention fagging when one is already in the middle of doing it anyways. Several lines were written highlighting oneself under a framing device of 'asking about the business'; were it about the questions, the exact same topics could be floated anonymously in a dedicated thread; alternately, you could respect the hustle and be full-throated in one's viral marketing.
Splitting the difference between two mesas in a plateau is a drop into the gorges below. When enemy lines are in front of you, you can advance all the way forwards, and destroy them, or advance to the rear, to guarantee your safety. Starting and stopping part way however, brings neither victory, nor safety, but death.
Ironic detachment and plausably deniable noncomittance are very common defense mechanisms many folk to day are possessed by, in coping with fears of consequence, or failure, or ultimately, the thought that someone could be thinking badly of them. But therein lies the trap; the same stroke that removes the possibility of exposure, also removes the possibility of truly 'doing' something and succeeding at it, as well.
Some vtubers are better in this department than others; point in fact, you could say that the endearing earnestness with which many do the things they do is what has attracted the attention of so many - already so jaded by so much else they might've been - to the whole 'virtual caster' ecosystem to begin with.
But it is also something that all of them, even the biggest can still be hobnailed by at times. Consider Calliope; her original songs get millions of views; yet, the occasional trailing off 'self-owns' in some songs, like the last section of deadbeats, well, the feeling they evoke can only be described as kinda
cringe. Even when the content is overall good, it can still be sour notes in something that can be even better.
There are ways things like that can be done without coming off badly (eg, it's done a lot better in reaper rapper than the aforementioned), but which of course needs the easy conviction that you are in fact really all that, that you're just dabbling in it in a backhanded manner because it's funny and fits flow, implications that don't *really* put yourself down. Eminem didn't sit on top of the rap game for so long because he gave people excuses not to like him, and you can see this in the big response 'Off With Their Heads' got. The bedrock message sent by self-effrontery is, 'you can not kill me if i kill myself first'; but you know, you're dead either way.
The biggest social influence people will take their cues about someone, is that someone themselves. You are your most important advocate. If a million zhangs or technicolour twitter karens demand you to apologize for some gay rrat, and you never do, then you are bulletproof; because if *you* don't act like you are guilty, then noone else is going to think in the darkest corners of their minds that you are 100% guilty either.
Vice-versa, if someone does bend the knee, than that means the *real* shit-tornado to fuck their life gets started: because they just confirmed in everyone's minds that they are in fact a 'bad person' who deserves to have bad things happen to them. In an environment of popular governance, social accusations are like fish hooks thrown out willy-nilly to see what bites; certainty in social competition only comes retroactively after the fact. Accusers themselves will not be certain; they desire the validation of others for their self-appointed exertions of power, and the most important person who they want to agree with their accusations, is the person they are accusing in the first place.
That'll be 10.99 (plus tip).
