I don't see how that makes them different per se. Its like having a word for people who use their real picture in their profile vs an image vs nothing.
There's a certain fascinating aspect to it. They use some sort of facial monitoring tech to observe their faces so the animated avatar can replicate them in real time with a variety of pre-programmed animations.
don't the face mod things on cell phones pretty much do the same? I mean tech wise. I mean I get the naming but seems like its just an option to me. Its the content to me but I don't really watch youtube or any other tube really for titillating content so much and I guess that just makes it all meh for me.
Couldn’t tell you personally. I just do 3D modeling as a hobby but some folks I know from the hobby space do commission work, and apparently jiggle physics on anime boobs is a commonly requested feature.
Well the only time I ever messed with jiggle physics was to animate a bunch of jello cubes falling from the ceiling, so yeah I’d say that’s pretty different than boobs.
You can consider it a subcategory of streamer. Livestreaming is all about your public face and persona, it's a lot more front and center than just an icon off to the side here, so someone choosing to present themselves as a character matters a lot. And for many VTubers, they literally are playing a character onstream, there's an entire subculture surrounding VTuber personas.
It's just kinda cute to see Bernie learn about this whole subculture like this.