You know, I remember a time when Holo had like 28 JP holos and like 3 overseas ones.
It was a point of pride being able to remember all of their names and gens, because they used to be so tightly knit as a group.
Pekora could do a silly little minecraft interaction with an ID holo and propel a whole damn ship out of it.
Or do a prank like this (
https://youtu.be/73tdmtX5KXw) affecting a bunch of girls and introducing ALL of them to a new viewers via their unique reactions.
Minecraft being commonplace meant that you could find a completely new girl talking to whoever you were watching at the time and the connections just grew and grew. Asacoco also helped showcase girls who you didn't know existed. And you HAD the time and energy to invest in all of them because you weren't really going outside anytime soon.
Holo is a lot more bigger now (43 JPs, 19 ENs, 9 IDs, total 71 girls) and yet it feels a lot... smaller.
Everyone have their own oshis their circle of friends to watch. There's very little mingling between groups (which used to be the norm back in the day), barring the once in a year grand events like GTA.
I do get that Cover found the best way to monetize what they had, and obviously it's inevitable that some would leave as a result of it.. but it just feels a lot more distant nowadays.
In those times, when a girl who wasn't even in holo for 2 weeks left, she was mourned by the whole community and had people posting about her for months afterwards.
I suppose not getting invested is a good way to distance yourself and prevent emotional damage when the inevitable happens to your own oshi... but I feel like we're losing something precious with that very same distance.
I wish we could go back to the times Hololive was more tightly-knit again.. it feels like the Box is showing cracks with each passing year..
