I found an old post on /jp/ that explains the hololive culture. I wonder if niji can follow this with their newer gens to recreate the success.
First, I want to clarify that everything I'm going to say now has an asterisk. It is liable to change and be proven wrong, and my definition relies on assumptions about the intent of Cover Corp. With that said, I'll try to give my best answer.
In the shortest words possible: Hololive Culture is Corporate Culture. It is determined by Cover, and is liable to change on the decision of the suits who run it. But that's not useful for discussion, so it raises a new question: What culture does Cover determine Hololive to have?
That's hard to determine, because Cover is notoriously hands off. They mostly let their talents do whatever they want. So to define "Hololive Culture" from that, we must go off what they have reacted against, and determine that Hololive Culture is defined by what Cover decides it is not. Looking at the incidents where Cover reacts, and what few standards Cover imposes on the talents, we can chart a rough estimate of Hololive Culture.
First: Cover has imposed a standard of keeping the entertainment "safe." No politics, no current events, no controversial issues imposed on talents or controversial people associated with them. The strongest evidence of this? Hitomi Chris being sacked for having a legitimate controversial element in how they entered Hololive is one. The newly defined rules from the Taiwan incident. Cover rejecting a collab with Project Melody outright. The fact that Cover was willing to bring Aloe back shows that they decide themselves what counts as a true controversy worth acting on. Another is the first Asacoco incident, where it was allowed to do as it wished until Coco's "Suicide Forest" joke, after which Cover determined Coco went too far, nerfing Asacoco thereafter. So the first facet of Hololive Culture is "Safe Entertainment." That is not to say that it cannot be edgy; only that it cannot cause legitimate controversy as determined by Cover.
The second thing that Cover promotes within their company is family/bonds. Cover has consistently moved to make the talent have genuine bonds with each other. They protect each other, they interact often, and they hold no ill will against each other. This is true within generations and within the company as a whole. The best way to define this is in opposition to the competition, Nijisanji, where cliques are well known and have caused issues in the company. So the second facet of Hololive Culture is best defined as "Family."
The last thing that seems to be a rule regarding Hololive Culture is Kayfabe. The Live2D/model is important; the talent within Hololive is separate from that talent outside of Hololive. But to be fair, this is the sloppiest rule out of the three I've managed to define. Talents are allowed to have their own careers outside of Hololive, and they are allowed to put a lot of effort into it, even after recruitment. See: Azki, Luna, Noel, Coco, Mori, Kiara, for a few examples I'm aware of. But they still have to respect and interact with the kayfabe on the Hololive clock. This is the most arbitrary one so far, though, because there isn't much to go off of for definition. The most is that recruitment advertisements make it clear to not talk about recruitment into Hololive to the public under your persona, and as far as I know, talents have not directly referenced their other personas online, although subtle references are allowed: The best example I can give for that is Polka's hair streak, but that can be argued as nebulous. Suffice to say, I defer to the management's judgement on how strictly kayabe must be adhered to, but recognize that it clearly exists. So that's the last facet I can pin down as an example of Hololive Culture: "Kayfabe."
All of this falls under the umbrella of Corporate deciding what is and is not allowed. If you truly want to disregard the idea of a culture, then the barest you can say is that Hololive Culture is "Whatever Cover decides it is." But if we take that initial description and factor in what Cover has decided to act against, a picture can be formed to define the culture.
>TL;DR:
Hololive, as determined by Cover, has a culture of safe entertainment where the boundaries can be pushed, but not too far. Hololive is also a group where everyone within holds respect for each other. Finally, it is defined by the kayfabe that exists with the use of it's anime models, to separate the talent's true self from their persona, although to what extent is unknown. But most importantly, these cultural rules are not determined by law, or by the talent; it is defined by the management and the people who run the company.
Whatever Cover allows to happen is Hololive Culture. If you see a talent do it without incident, it is allowed by Hololive Culture. If Cover ever acts to restrict the talent, then what they stop is not Hololive Culture. Simple as.
