At OffKai Expo, Panel 3 VTuber Friendships: A Guide https://www.offkaiexpo.com/event/vtuber-friendships-a-guide/

• 5m late due to technical issues
• Presented by:
  • KittyMoma
  • Ashy
• I like how the slides show every part of the talk at the top so you know where in the talk we currently are.
• It’s the most human thing to reach out to others for connection and interaction. Having friends in the workplace leads to better benefits for everyone.
• However, there is a pervasive culture of fast-burning friendships. Your best friends are not always your best coworkers.
• Content Creation
  • Being a content creator is a full-time job
  • There is some stigma around pursuing streaming as a career. For example, some may say “I prefer smaller streamers” or “it should be a passion, not a profession” or “growth changed them. People who say this are not truly being supportive.
  • Be honest with yourself and people you collaborate with. Think about…
    • Why do you stream? Decide if it is a hobby or a career. Feel free to change goals later, but recognize what you want to do in the moment.
    • What do you want to create?
    • What are your strengths and weaknesses?
• Collaborations
  • Are collaborations for you? There are benefits and downsides to collabs.
    • Networking vs Power Imbalances
    • Cross Promotion vs Uneven effort
    • Innovation vs Uneven rewards
    • More content vs Limited chat interactions
      • Consider setting expectations with viewers that collabs mean more limited chat interaction
  • Know your self, know your friends
    • What is your organizational style? Scheduled, Spontaneous, or Available? You will have an easier time with collabs if you organize them.
    • What games do you like to play? Is this content good for collabs? Some games are great like Repo, Lethal Company, Among Us, etc. Some games are not as good, like visual novels or longer form games. This has nothing to do with how good the game is; some games are great but don’t work well for collabs.
    • What role do you play in collabs? Are you the leader, the gremlin, the newb? You might want to consider avoiding having too many of the same type in a stream. They can lead to interesting collabs but you need to maybe talk about it in advance to avoid conflict.
    • What size groups are you comfortable with? How many people is too many? Games with proximity chat can deal with larger groups better, though you end up with the same smaller group of people usually.
    • Do your friends take this as seriously as you? They might flake, not honor your expectations, etc. How are they in front of a crowd? Do they know what they can or cannot day? How do they present themselves?
• Communication
  • Pre-Collab: Share boundaries and preferences. Pronouns? Are people okay with being flirty? Are people okay with cursing? Set up a red/yellow/green light or safeword system. Set up rules for engagement so you don’t find out what the boundaries are during the stream.
  • Tech setup: Make sure everyone is set up correctly.
  • On Air: Know how to steer conversations away from a topic when needed.
  • Post-Collab Debrief: Ask what went well or not. Talk about if expectations were met or not. Talk about what didn’t work. Be truthful and honest, but polite. Don’t ghost someone. Don’t let negative feelings fester.
• Conclusion
  • As much as everyone likes to say they like honesty, not everyone likes it.
  • Friendship workflow:
    • Start as coworkers. Even if you are already friends. Reframe how you interact for content creation, talk about how seriously you want to take it.
    • Build a professional bond. Lay a solid foundation of mutual interests and vlues within the boundaries of your workspace.
    • Let it happen naturally. True friendship when you spend time together. Don’t try to force friendship. Let it happen naturally over time. Don’t try to be besties right away or become close to someone by trauma dumping. Take it slow, introduce things about you a little at a time. Fast friendships burn out just as quickly.
    • Constantly reasses. Check in, make sure you are still aligned, be willing to acknowledge when a relationship has run its course. You might still want to be friends if the professional content creation work does not fit as well anymore.
• Q&A
  • How do you find people to collaborate with?
    • Check social media and look for people that are interested in finding collabs. Talk to people after larger collabs about shared interests.
  • Say there is a larger VTuber that you genuinely believe that you could do a good collab with? What is a good way of facilitating that without coming off as clout chasing?
    • That’s tricky. They probably won’t engage too much until you reach a certain size that will benefit them. They probably already have a support network, good friends, etc. Their lives might be full enough that there isn’t space for new relationships. It can be hard to acknowledge this. Yoi have to bring something unique and special to the table aside from having good chemistry to make it worth their time.
    • Values genuine connection over collabs. Get to know them as a person first before considering the professional work and potential collabs. Lay the foundation first.
    • Learn what their values are and what kind of collabs they like.
  • Will this presentation be posted on youtube?
    • It is being recorded and will be posted on the youtube channel MsKittyMama.
  • Have you had any missteps in networking? What did you learn? What would you do differently?
    • Thought they were closer to someone than they actually were. Tried to do a collab with someone who outwardly expressed wanting a collab, but they never responded or reciprocated. Realized that they were being parasocial about it.
    • Communication and scheduling is really important. Missed great opportunities due to poor communication.Send messages right away, work around their own schedule better.
  • As a person with a tight schedule and aspiring to be a vtuber, how do i go about finding help and advice for getting started?
    • There are a lot of great tutorials on YouTube. Ask questions in stream, check their about panels.
    • Do stuff you are passionate about. People feel that energy and are drawn to it.
  • I am a small vtuber who has been in a few small collabs, but I struggle with reaching out to others. How do i deal with the social anxiety of that.
    • Practice. Respond to people more on bsky or twitter, even if they don’t acknowledge it by replying or liking it.
  • How do you deal with different size VTubers not knowing how to react out to each other (unsure what they were asking)
    • Ask exploratory questions like “would you like to collab” or “can we hang out offline” to see if there is chemistry
  • How do you prepare for fluctuations in energy during collabs of different sizes?
    • Prepare in advance, write down topics that they might be interested in talking about. Everyone likes to talk about themselves.
  • I forget people exist a lot, how do you overcome being a wallflower? (unsure, couldn’t hear)
    • Set a lot of timers and calendar events where I can see it all the time. Set up multiple reminders.