Maintaining the Kayfabe of Vocaloid

[Nokone Miku]

(via twitter)​

I love artwork and promo material that maintains the illusion that Miku and friends are actual performers. Keeping to kayfabe if you will. We know they aren't real. The people making the material know they're not real. But we make an unspoken agreement that we will buy into the illusion that they are real for the sake of enjoyment (suspend our disbelief). [Note: Kayfabe goes a step beyond being "in character" or "out of character." With kayfabe, even the out-of-character stuff is considered to be part of the character. The non-fiction is considered to be part of the fiction on a meta level. For instance: if a performer gets injured in real life, their character getting injured is written into the fiction and the real event becomes part of the story.]

Some in the fandom, especially those new to it, concern themselves with the "canon" of Vocaloid. Wondering which depictions are true to the character, or what the official stance is, or what the community considers to be mainstream vs fringe. The answer is that there is no canon. The closest thing we have to an official depiction of Miku is how she is portrayed in the live concerts. Even the Project DIVA games are more like their own continuity rather than anything official.

(via twitter)​

When I see the various depictions of the characters, in the back of my mind I see them as performers and entertainers or actors. Filming videos for songs. Showing up to do photo shoots. Recording vocals and doing voiceovers. Showing up to promotional events.

The impression gets reinforced by things like Hatsune Miku being made an official COVID prevention supporter. Or all the various articles that marvel at this virtual idol from Japan. Plus some of the cross-promotions that portray Miku as a fashion model, or indeed just the fact that she has real-world promotions with various companies (like Wendy's).

(from Project Sekai promo video that, for the life of me, I can't find again)​

So how do you feel?

Do you prefer the characters to be thought of as creative commons fictional characters? Perhaps as sort of a multiverse of individual narratives. Or a shared visual template for sharing stories and ideas. The only thing official is their appearance after all.

Do you think of them as virtual actors, vocalists, and dancers? Do they theoretically have an existence outside of fan creations, with a loosely defined personality of sorts. (Not officially, but is this your subconscious impression of them.)

Perhaps you are more of a strict realist and see them as a brand or marketing tool. Characters used to promote the software, merchandise, and producers' music. A unified visual for cross-promotion and collaboration.

Maybe you don't really care about this aspect and prefer to focus on the software and voicebanks as tools for music production. These associated characters might even be a nuisance for you, depending on what type of production you are making, or market you are trying to reach. Some producers embrace the image of being a "Vocaloid producer." Others dislike the label and see themselves as more generalized independent musicians/artists.

There are also those for whom the visual appeal is all that really matters. They enjoy art and merchandise that depict the characters, but aren't so much invested in the music side of things.

There's no wrong answer here. I'm just curious about your thoughts, impressions, and ideas.

 

[Blue Of Mind]

When I got into Vocaloid as a young'un, I was all about the fandom/kayfabe aspect in relation to the avatars, but I had a lot of my own headcanons transplanted on top of the most common fan and "canon" depictions. (I.e. Blue of Mind!Miku is happy and cheerful in line with most fandom interpretations, but she secretly possesses an eccentric/"lol so random" side that catches people off guard). The lack of a true Vocaloid canon really appealed to me, because I could add certain aspects of myself to the characters if I wanted to. (Another example: Blue!Rin is a closet military buff, despite being the immature prankster of the Kagamine twins and not displaying any other exceptional academic abilities).

But as I get older, I see Vocaloid more along the lines of its original intention of being a different type of musical instrument, which has influenced how I categorise Vocaloid songs on my iPod - nowadays, I'm arranging them by producer a lot more than I used to as a kid, when I was one of those kinda lazy fans who just credited the Vocaloid. (I must say, seeing my Shu-t and Livetune playlists sitting alongside the Kraftwerk, Devo and Jean-Michel Jarre ones says a ton about how my musical preferences have evolved over the last decade and a bit before that).

Saying all of that, I still enjoy the kayfabe aspect of Vocaloid, but I guess I just don't take it as seriously as I used to? Sometimes I see comments on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram where people treat Miku and co. in particular as if they were real life idols who can do no wrong, and it just brings to mind this one SpongeBob quote. Maybe it's yet another sign that I'm getting too old for certain aspects of fandom culture, and I'm calming down with age.

 

[Aia]

When I was about two years into Vocaloid, that's where I was more into the kayfabe aspect. I remember creating this whole lore starring the V1 gang and other engloids, as a generation of performers dealing with the changes of life. Earlier when I was a new fan, I was easily convinced that Miku was an artist of her own, but never to the extent where she was an actual idol as in canon and fanon.

Like most people, I appreciate the lack of canon in this fandom. It has led to the creation of so many songs and stories that I loved in the past years. I would even find ways to tie them all together and make my own universe!

However, I feel like these days, official canon is what many people look for. I don't mind it particularly, but it does bother me when others are so persistent that it's the only way to portray a vocaloid. Likewise, I also kinda resent those that only see them as products and nothing more. Not that I don't respect the technical aspect of vocal synths, but creating around these characters is what makes the process fun!

 

[mobius017]

I don't get into the headcanon aspect of vocal synth culture all that much. My interaction with the subject only extends to some passing ideas about my favorite synths' personalities, with some insight taken from the way they are portrayed in concerts/other things they're involved with. That isn't to say that I find my perceptions/ideas regarding the synths "natures" to be unimportant. They are important, and that's one reason why how a company chooses to portray its synth/the stuff they get them involved with is important. At the same time (or maybe I should say, "for that reason"), despite being a writer (a person who creates characters) himself, this is one instance where I feel strongly that it's possible for a creation to exist apart from its creator. Acknowledging that it's an arrogant point of view, I mean no disrespect, but if CFM decided to have Miku do something truly abominable, I'd be the first to be willing to tell them that THEIR understanding of her was wrong.

I don't feel that the idea of kayfabe really fits my relationship with the synths, though, at least most of the time. To summarize/paraphrase my understanding of the article, kayfabe is the situation where the audience and the performers both partake in an illusion, and that illusion is central to the audience's enjoyment of a performance. In the example of professional wrestling, it's the illusion that the two combatants are actually fighting full-out to secure a non-predetermined result.

I can see the similarity between that and a vocal synth concert. It's a pretty close similarity, in fact. I've often said, and will continue to say, that I love little nuances that make the vocal synths seem more like human performers, or that make them interact with the band as though they were all the same.

At the same time, though, there's a subtle but important difference in my own point of view, generally speaking, that makes the kayfabe concept not entirely suit the way I think. As it happens, this difference sort of contradicts what I said earlier: I don't actually subscribe to the illusion that the vocal synths are human.

In my view, Miku and the others are ideas, ideas for beings who act, think, feel, and perform as presented. They're characters. They don't need to lean on the suspension of disbelief in order to become human, or even real. They don't pretend to be human, and when taken exactly as they are (ideas/characters), they're as real as anything else.

Where, then, does my appreciation for those human-like nuances come from? Probably, it comes from the more instinctive precept that something that looks human becomes more "real" if it walks about on two legs under its own power, as I do.

I imagine that another idea I've mentioned several times elsewhere on VVN, that part of the fun of working with a vocal synth is imagining that you're working with an actual singer, as well as my own fanfic, fall more into line with this more instinctive line of thought; they might get into kayfabe. Though there again, even while imagining working with your synth's character, you're never more aware of the full truth of their nature than when you're shifting notes and tweaking parameters. And how Miku is different from the humans she works with is one of the central themes of the fic....

 

[pico]

I like art that portrays the characters as performers and transposes them into situations that makes them feel real, but I don't find myself wanting more kayfabe or wanting to create kayfabe. I like well-done kayfabe when I see it but it's never been a main draw to these characters for me. As a kid, I was never a "miku fan" or a "len fan" and more just a "vocaloid fan".
I like the sort of "multiverse" proposal mentioned in the OP, I think it definitely describes how I feel about headcanons and unique takes on the characters. I see Vocaloid characters as vessels for people's creativity, so if a fanwork is engaging and well put together, I'll always be invested in it because that's the main appeal to me. The malleability is this community's main strength.