Butcher Vanity and other similar "hits" in recent years (Ghost definitely comes to mind here) are very interesting for me to watch explode in popularity as someone with a lot of time spent in animation/oc/meme community on youtube (it has now become an even bigger community on tiktok, which i do not use and so i do now know how everything feels there exactly) because when i see a song like this with its visuals/art/"story" it makes so much sense as to how it takes off. artists like Ghost and Ferry gather a similar audience with their story/character focused songs, which also dont (always) use vocal synths' designs as the face of their work, which attracts more people imo. Animation meme community that originated on YT is what modern tiktok takes after HEAVILY especially, so this general genre of vocal synth music has taken off pretty well. the creator of this song made an easily meme-able format with its simple character, colors, and repetition which many replicated in their own videos with their own ocs or fandoms. the song itself creating clear imagery/metaphors to go off of is ripe for interpretation visually, easy to insert your own story when you hear it.
what trends/goes viral for music is always bit a bit random, vocal synth or not. but vocal synth artists have already always had such a focus on 'character visuals' and many classic vocal synth songs telling stories even before this- but i think for BV there was some benefit in it not being recognizable as a vocal synth song by some, people went to it with no prior impressions. and additionally, the lack of knowledge on who Yi Xi was probably makes it more welcoming to insert whoever you want (versus a miku song, many will likely only think of miku with it. who is yi xi? she doesnt have a design, and the BV design is very simple and vague/not greatly associated with yi xi anyways!) (and personally this is what i would hope for the use of 'characterless' banks like yi xi, id really love to see use of vocal synths in a way that doesnt specifically make a point of them being a voc synth)
anyways, its hard to describe everything im thinking here because there is so much history and length to the trends of this kind of music going viral (but i sure do sit back and watch it happen), and the kinds of communities that take them and run lol. it was no surprise to me to see the song take off the way it did (not saying that as a bad thing. i just notice the traits after some time)
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