Comparison between Western and Japanese VTuber. Identity formation

Please read this before looking at the slides. I think there're enough stereotype and generalisations in this world and I didn't want to create a new one. Here're some answers to the questions I have received in the recent days. I will post a more detailed analysis with explanations and a literature review next month. 

This is a very personal introduction which impacted the study’s limitations and decisions. You might have all noticed that I put Europe, USA and Canada as “Western”. Generally, the “Western World” is described as having European countries, North and South America and Australia. Why did I not separate this big chunk of a world into sub-groups? Well, out of 45 Western VTuber responses 4 were French and 2 Mexican, the rest came in majority from Norther America. Proportion wise it did not workout well to make a comparison. In the 5 min presentation I did not have the time to talk about the specific groups that made up the Western population. In a future document and a future conference, I would like to talk more in details about the specifications that constituted the Western group. 

I am aware that the number of Japanese VTuber is smaller than that of Western (although I sent approximately 300 messages to different Japanese VTuber), due to the deadline I had to work with the numbers I had. In the next month I will publish a detailed research and analysis with some new supplementary numbers for Japanese VTuber. As you can see dividing into countries couldn’t work. Why did I not do a cultural analysis? In Europe, as in America there’re a lot of individuals who are mixed and who come from different “cultural” backgrounds; I think that it’s delicate slapping a generalization of a culture onto an individual. That’s how stereotypes work.

 Here’s an example why this approach is doomed to have issues: I’m a 27 year old woman, I was born in Russia to two Russian parents; when I was 9 we moved to England and lived there for couple of years. Since the past 17 years I’ve been living in Switzerland. I have a Russian and a Malta citizenship. If I were to do a “cultural” analysis, what would I do? Should I be put in Russian category just because of my parents and one of my passports? But I haven’t lived there since I was 8 years old. Should I be put into the Malta category? Bur I’ve only visited the country 5 times. Should I be analyzed according to the Swiss culture? But I’m not Swiss. Same goes with the religion, which is it: orthodox, catholic or protestant? Knowing that I’m an atheist. This is a very personal perspective on things and in no way or form am I implying that anybody who thinks differently is wrong. This is just the path that I chose to follow as an academic due to the inequalities, stereotypes and lack of basis that I have noticed. 

I do not wish to slap onto an individual a generalization of a society he or she lives in. I do not wish to create or perpetuate stereotypes and generalizations that exist based on countries and “cultures”. As an anthropologist, I’m interested in the identity formation of a VTuber and how the technology impacts their lives while they make sense of it. Instead of thinking of this as West & Japan please think of this as A and B. This is not a comparison with the goal to oppose the A and B. Comparison is not about differences in opposing or “othering” it’s about making connections, making a relationship between groups of individuals and understanding how a phenomenon that has originated in Japan has spread across the globe. 

The reason why I chose “West” was to avoid sliding into the cultural analysis, stereotypes and oppositions, but at the same time I had to choose a word for VTuber who are not Japanese and “West” represents a general idea of different countries that are not Japan. It functions as an A/Not A dichotomy. If you are bothered by the Japan & West differentiation, please think of this as: “VTuber originated in Japan with Kizuna AI (?) and now has spread across the globe. How do individuals become VTuber across the globe?”. In the future I wish that there’re will be more VTuber and that I will be able to present to you a survey that has a variety of answers and opinions. Once again, I’m interested in identity formation of individuals in the VR world and not in political, religious and nationalistic strategies.

If I were to chose not an identity formation analysis based on content and context, I would have had to take into account variables such as: nationality, social class, education, ethnicity, language, world-view, income, occupation, parental status, personal history, party affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientations, personality, personal history, aspirations, capabilities, social inequalities, affiliations, time management, gender, sexe, etc. I chose to only choose some of the aspect that were in relation to identity formation theories based on content and context. I was interested in how individuals decide to position themselves regarding those theories. And seeing the difficulties I have encountered to make people answer my survey which did not have a lot of sensitive questions, I doubt that VTuber, who's goal is to stay anonymous, would have answered to the list of parameters mentioned above.

And again, just because I think this way and chose this path does not mean that I think other views are wrong.

Here're the google slides: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xqhpXysbA_vekO8E7TpUnkqY9SWIdYwg/view?usp=sharing

And here's the full video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjcU7zcQT2Y&t=32s