>>39493318this is so blatantly wrong on so many levels
The vtubing scene took shape in 2017. Before that there were two vtubers who formulated what we call a vtuber today: Kizuna Ai and Eilene, the latter largely forgotten today.
In 2017 many new successful vtubers appeared: Siro, Baacharu, Antama (later rebranded as Enogu), Mirai Akari (under the Eilene's brand), Noja, and lastly Kaguya Luna. Kizuna, Siro, Mirai Akari, Noja and Luna are now known as Four Heavenly Kings, they basically defined the vtubing subculture as we know it. Absolutely everyone knows that much.
What many people forget for some reason is that it was the Antama duo that pioneered idol vtubers.
That same year, 2017, several underdogs appeared, including rather big budget ones like Fujisaki Yua. One of these underdogs was Tokino Sora. Sora initially focused on long zatsu streams, which was rather uncharacteristic for vtubers of that era and was one of the reasons her career tanked during that era. The vtubing boom itself was still rather small, and vtubers who were spamming short videos overshadowed those who focused on longer (>20 minutes) videos, let alone streams. You could say that clips were always the key to success in this industry.
Other underdogs have also contributed to the evolution of vtubing in one way or another. For example, Tenmakinin pioneered collabs.
In the beginning of 2018 Nijisanji entered the industry and changed everything. Tsukino Mito, Deron and Shizuka Rin focused heavily on vidya and zatsu streams and, unlike Sora, not only found success in this niche but redefined the format of vtubing itself. I'll repeat it once again: streams haven't been the default vtubing format until these three showed up and got successful.
Hololive wasn't a pioneer in anything. One could argue that it wasn't even Hololive that popularized vtubers in the West - it was the Youtube algorithm.
