Online fandom is an indomitable force–one that platforms like YouTube and companies like Youtooz are increasingly recognizing. But that amount of fan attention can also have a contentious side, with some people getting way too parasocial about idols (Chappell Roan has been talking a lot about this recently), and others engaging in toxic behaviors like doxxing.
The latter happened to a spate of VTubers during the international launch of Holoplus, a fan-gathering app from Tokyo-based VTuber agency Hololive. Hololive is one of VTubing’s most well-known agencies, and reps creators like Gawr Gura (4.5 million subscribers on YouTube) and Houshou Marine (3.4 million).
On Aug. 22, it released Holoplus as a community discussion and connection app, where fans could come together and share content about its VTubers and upcoming events (like the concert it’s putting on this weekend at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn).
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But things went quickly awry: As Dexerto lays out, the app’s fan forum was unmoderated at launch, and did not filter for NSFW content or have spam protection in place. Some posters were just jazzed to talk about their favorite VTubers. Others took advantage of this lax environment and doxxed Hololive’s talent, including posting candid IRL photos of them (a taboo in the VTuber space, where most creators present as their illustrated avatars and don’t share their own names or faces).
To contain these issues, Hololive locked the app early this morning, freezing the ability to post, and then relaunched it a few hours later, with all doxxing, NSFW content, and spam removed.
Dexerto reports the forums are now moderated, and posts that violate its TOS are removed. We’re surprised the app didn’t launch with stricter rules. Perhaps there was an assumption of good faith, which we get, considering the general positive and supportive nature of fan communities. But that level of fervor is guaranteed to breed some contempt, and protecting talent–especially talent that’s so online, where fans can speak at them on any number of platforms at any time–has to be agencies’ and platforms’ top concern.
Creators being doxxed and, on the more extreme end, swatted, has become more and more common over the past few years. And VTubers can sometimes be targeted more frequently by doxxing, since, as we saw with Dream, people can get real weird when they want to know what their favorite creator looks like.
Hololive hasn’t released a statement about the launch issues or its plan for moderating Holoplus moving forward, but we suspect it’s now keeping a close eye on the app’s community tab.
