>>27929748>Hololive is undoubtedly the most popular and accessible vtuber group out there, but why? Aren't normalfags supposed to hate idol culture?The first thing (why is Hololive popular) and the last thing (idol culture) don't really have all that much to do with each other - sure, we can argue about how they are related (ie. "Hololive is the most popular BECAUSE it is the most idol-like", and then go in circles about what that means for "so normies actually LIKE idol culture after all?").
But I'd posit a simpler explanation - normies just like what is already popular (in some ways, that's one of the quintessential definitions of "normie"). And Hololive has been the most popular vtuber group already for a few years now, especially in the West, going from ascendancy to dominance at least since late 2019 / early 2020 for various reasons (viral meme clips, gacha collabs, broad clipper base providing lots of easy entry points for more newfags which fuels more clips in an ever growing feedback loop, competing agencies shitting the bed with bad decisions and missteps, covid boom, and finally HoloMyth being the first "serious" attempt at an EN branch by a major JP agency coming in at the right time right place to capture all that growing pent-up demand for an EN group and cornering the market with their first-mover advantage).
So, at some point, when you reach a certain size, there is a sort of "institutional inertia" that basically guarantees you keep growing (unless you majorly shit the bed with a couple of fuckups and missteps), because the self-reinforcing nature of the YT algo selects for what is already popular (because, with reason, it thinks that this is what people want to watch, because hurrdurr it wouldn't be already popular otherwise) and prioritizes that in their recommendeds, thus feeding ever more people to the already popular thing in a self-sustaining manner (until all the potential fanbase is eventually tapped out).
And people, especially "normies", LIKE to partake in what's already popular. First, it is "safe", there's no real controversy and drawback for liking [popular thing]. Second, and this is also important, [popular thing] also always comes with a massive existing fan community, and people like to "belong" (especially nowadays in the modern individualized world where actual community is a scarce commodity and gets replaced by imaginary fan communities). That's attractive in itself, no matter the "quality" of the thing the community is build around, the fact that it has a community. Unless you're consciously a contrarian hipster (and normies are by definition not), you'll flock to where already the most other people are, because that ensures you'll always have other people around to talk with you about [popular thing] and have a constant stream of fanmade content to enhance your experience. Other smaller vtuber groups for example don't have that benefit and it's much more of an uphill struggle for them.
