Pattoe89

I stream video game content and many female streamers I know use an avatar that replicates their facial movements to represent themselves. They have told me that they wouldn't stream live if they had to use their face instead of this avatar for fear of being judged and harassed.

What are your thoughts on this trend. Are these avatars empowering or is it sad that women feel the need to use them?

An unintentional face reveal can be quite upsetting too. This can happen when the vtuber is doing a cooking stream and their face is caught in a reflective surface. Viewers will be quick to clip the image and publish it online.

I think you mentioning the metaverse is very apt, a lot of lessons learned from vtubers in the past few years are going to show up there on a larger scale.

Another one is the vtuber having their avatar used in pornography without their consent. Vtubers form a very strong bond with their avatar as part of their identity, having it used like that is very concerning, I'm sure many will form strong identities with their avatars on the metaverse too, and similar issues may occur.

I think this touches on the "deepfake" issue in pornography, but avatars are easier to fake than actual faces.

Out of morbid curiosity, how did this situation resolve?

Also, how much does a product like that even cost?

I need that information...

For a friend.

Unfortunately it doesn't stop harassment. People using these avatars are called 'vtubers' (coming from virtual youtuber) One of these vtubers (called Rushia) recently received threats of violence and doxxing after it was leaked that she may be in a relationship. In that way it seems they face many of the same issues of other online personalities, but using a different name and face (and sometimes even a voice changer) seems make it harder for the abusers to track them down.

No problem! You should pop onto Twitch and YouTube and check out some vtubers, see if you can arrange a chat with one. They're very fascinating and might give you some insight into how avatars will be treated in the metaverse once it becomes widely used.