funny to see this come up since i was just thinking about it today after seeing some videos about it in the last week. to put it lightly, i absolutely hate them lol. as you mention- they are completely made up. i mostly hate the use of buzzwords like "robot" "AI" "virtual" etc etc for a thing that is more often than not... none of those things other than being represented by a virtual avatar. it is, at most, a virtual avatar being played by an actor with a written script to go by- all perfectly directed towards trends and going viral, by some corporation jumping on trends. there may be some level of AI written songs perhaps, maybe. regardless, the methods to which they supposedly use AI becomes pointless with the methods of its actual presentation (acted by/voiced by a human, for one). Overall the vagueness of them is annoying to me in this regard, bc it leaves a huge grey spot in the legitimacy anyways, while the companies go off to have solemnly voiced interviews of the characters talking about being ~real~ or ~born~ or whatever.... Like, the vocal synth scene is all about creative freedom, and collaborative art, and nearly all of the content is fanmade. Meanwhile, these virtual "influencers" (not to be a boomer but I think I'm really beginning to really hate this term/concept) are pure corporate artifice that lack any of the community and creativity that actually made Hatsune Miku et al. the icons that they are today.
Just a lil ol' rant from lil ol' me!
some of the stuff i see people say in regards to it like 'bringing together... the virtual world and the real world' are just... it is just nonsense. it doesnt mean anything at all, not really. so many words twisted into meanings and ideas all hyped by companies wanting to make money. in the end its a cash grab with little to no heart, and lies or vague truths to pull interest from people who don't know anything about the prospect of a "virtual artist".
- Vanilla. A default ice cream flavor for the default Utau voicebank. They were really just there to drive everyone else and didn't want to waste time picking out a flavor.
- Mint chocolate chip. They didn't even consider trying out a new flavor, they just went right ahead and ordered their favorite.
- Bubblegum or peppermint. They wanted to go the the candy store instead, but kept it inside to avoid conflict. They also tried to offer some of their ice cream to Defoko to thank them for driving everyone, only for Defoko to eat the entire thing. Momo cried all the way home.
- Chocolate. They spent the whole time trying to decide what flavor to get, and ended up just picking something that was guaranteed to be good. Then they spent to next five minutes trying to muster up the courage to actually ask for it.
- Dark chocolate cherry. They're extra and they know it. They probably also tried to make a claim about it being healthier and boasted about how they were more mature for picking it over the other flavors.
- Salted caramel. They were originally going to get a banana split to try and give to Len, but Momo convinced them to try and think about themselves for once.
- They were too shy to order anything. They spent the entire time hiding behind Ruko, but by the time Ruko actually picked something and ordered it, Defoko was fed up with everyone lollygagging and demanded everyone to get in the car.
