Inside China's $16B virtual influencer industry, as motion capture actors complain of hard working conditions powering their avatars four to five hours per day
It's really about the Pacific, but Taiwan stands in the way. Art: Mark Corry. Tweets: Ross Dawson / @rossdawson : Virtual influencers are becoming massive, especially in China, where it's a $16bn industry. Behind them are not just AI, but a horde of overworked motion capture actors who are sometimes going off-script. https://restofworld.org/... James Vincent / @jjvincent : great report on the mo-capped human labor powering china's virtual influencers. another example of a technological veil being used to hide the friction created by a blood-and-flesh human working x hours a week. https://restofworld.org/... https://twitter.com/... Paul Roquet / @inqualia : Good piece from @restofworld on vtuber/virtual idol labor exploitation. Interesting how these characters are always marketed as controllable, corporate-owned virtual assets, but fans consistently care a lot more about the ‘person inside’ https://restofworld.org/... Cengiz / @cengizyar : “How many hours the motion capture actress works is not decided by themselves. It's decided by the operations staff behind them.” @megatobin1 & @violazhouyi report for @restofworld on the hidden labor behind China's multibillion-dollar vtuber industry. https://restofworld.org/... Anup Kaphle / @anupkaphle : “There's the feeling that it's a lot of hard work for very little reward.” The overworked humans behind China's virtual influencers By @violazhouyi & @megatobin1 https://restofworld.org/... Vicki Turk / @vickiturk : Love this story on a phenomenon I knew nothing about - even China's virtual influencers are burned out by @violazhouyi @megatobin1 https://restofworld.org/...