The Little-Known VSingers
"Virtual singers have no soul of their own—but we have been companions for so long, soaking in each other for so long, that I gave them half my soul, and they gave me half their voices."
I have long wanted to write about VOCALOID. For a long time, however, I kept pondering a question: compared with real human performers, do VSingers offer listeners anything beyond a different singing voice? And yet, what is the difference between the “G Major Aria” and “Senbonzakura” to us? What is pleasing in the moment is sufficient.
Even if I write this now, no one in the V-sphere cares anymore. Although Luo Tianyi’s appearance on the Spring Festival Gala seemed like a flourishing—those xfh fans are not our V-circle. In early April, wwk’s The Unknown Goose Mother reached mythical status. The reason I am writing this is that four years ago was around when wwk departed this world, sending a wave through the V-sphere—Bilibili was full of tributes to him. But now no one remembers. Perhaps that is one reason I uninstalled Bilibili. “Whenever I encounter the feelings of people of old, I find them as if joined in one accord; I never fail to lament over them when I come to read their writings, and I cannot understand why in my heart.” What makes the V-sphere different from other fandoms? It is this broad, pervasive ultimate concern—present not only between listeners and creators, but woven into the content itself.
I remember when I first started listening to Miku, Kizuna AI was still active; the Ling General seemed to still be on the frontlines; I was listening on an MP3 player. The Chinese V-sphere then—which was basically Bilibili—had a cast of participants who still seemed rather green. ilem and Wugui were probably still in university. Back then I did not even like listening to Cun Niang. So as a middle-schooler I could not yet grasp what feelings and meanings were embedded in their songs.
Now I sit in my dormitory listening to those Chinese songs with something of Z Xinhao’s state of mind, and I can begin to guess why he was offline for so long at one point. Looking back at ilem’s music, it too has lost that old absurdist quality. In the three years from Late-Night Poet to Going Up the Hill, it wasn’t just ilem and V-sphere fans—the whole country believed the future would go on being prosperous and flourishing like this. Then in the three years from Going Up the Hill to White Bird Crossing the River Flat, unspeakably difficult days came. We all know about ilem’s emotional journey with Teacher Zhang. I wonder whether ilem still remembers: “May I live to see VCs break through the dimensional barrier, let this singing voice resound in every corner of the three-dimensional world”? However things turned out, that line today is bitterly ironic for ilem and everyone else.
For creators like ilem, virtual singers mean something more. He once described his feeling while tuning a voice:
I am singing. I know our voices are worlds apart, but in an instant I recognized that familiar female voice as me singing. I played it to friends—it wasn’t an illusion; they felt it too. Now I play it for you—you can feel it too. Virtual singers originally have no soul, but we have been companions for so long, soaking in each other for so long, that I gave them half my soul, and they gave me half their voices.
I believe him. Even though creators tune them so skillfully, even though AI voice banks now exist, the voices of VSingers still have something detectably different from human voices—perhaps the electronic timbre, perhaps something technical—but I prefer to think it is emotional. We can project all our feelings onto 2D characters, and thanks to VOCALOID, those characters have gained the means to express themselves back. Every person’s Luo Tianyi is different, whether listener or creator; if we once said a song has life, now virtual singers have been given life. And unlike VTubers, VSingers belong completely and solely to one person. That companionship is one no one else can provide, and for some people, it is the only companionship they have. I don’t know whether wwk, at the end, thanked Miku and the other vocals—thanked them for their company when no one else understood, for giving his life some small measure of joy. And can today’s AI truly give VOCALOIDs life?
But I still miss those slightly clumsy old songs from long ago. Perhaps I care nothing at all about musical quality, only about community interaction—so maybe I don’t really love music after all.