※Originally published on note, Aug 30, 2024.
Summer ends.
When I moved to Tokyo, I enrolled in a university for one reason only: to run away from home. By the time summer rolled around, I was already prepared to drop out. You could say I finally accepted that there was no “proper” path for me to live on. Or you could say I just kept doing what I’d always done—skipping everything without thinking about the consequences.
University summer break is pretty long—about a month and a half. Some of you reading this might be spending that right now: the freest intermission of your life, a moratorium. Apparently, that surplus of time in your late teens—the raw energy of youth—can also be a huge chance for that energy to actually go somewhere.
About seven years ago. I was already the age people normally graduate and join a company, but I’d dropped out of my first university before even making it through that first summer, and I’d turned into an unemployed person. I was living in a share house, converting the tiny royalties I had into rent payments, and spending my days with nothing but the internet, books, and anime for company. A moratorium far too long to call summer vacation.
In that infinite stretch of time, I watched the moment Virtual YouTubers appeared—and evolved.
Why did I discover Kizuna AI early, and even write about her? Because I had more free time than anyone. By sheer momentum, I also found Nekomasu back when his videos were getting, like, 200 views, and I wrote on my blog: “Even a man can become a cute anime girl if it’s in the virtual world with an avatar.” That article spread like wildfire as a new era cracked open, and I started getting messages from all sorts of companies looking to turn “VTuber” into a business.
“We want your insight,” they said.
It was a reversal home run: an unemployed nobody being relied on by major corporations.
I’ll skip the specifics of what I actually did during that period, but I worked absurdly hard. Hard enough that—because it was the first time in my life I’d done “work” or “labor” that wasn’t basically part-time-job level—I developed an adjustment disorder. Two weeks where I couldn’t speak to anyone, couldn’t even open the internet. Hell.
I think I contributed that much to the era, but it’s not very fun to reveal the tricks behind the “pioneer days,” so I’m going to keep that tucked away in my chest for now.
Still, if you’re wondering why I later managed to suddenly succeed at planning and producing indie games—and building the trust relationships around that—the answer is simple: the adults involved evaluated the record of work I’d done behind the scenes with various Virtual YouTuber–related companies. I’m grateful.
Anyway, the reason I could track internet trends that closely wasn’t some noble talent. I was just idle, and for some reason my “youth energy” was overflowing—even though I was already a bit past twenty.
I realized it when, out of pure curiosity, I asked an executive-type guy:
“Why are you putting this much speed and budget into launching V projects?”
I especially wanted to know why he was so adamant about “We have to release by summer.” Sure, faster is better, but why were they so afraid of summer?
He told me:
“In a V scene this hot, a huge wave of university students will inevitably flood in. Most of them are nobodies. But some of them will awaken during summer break. They’ll take the first truly free time and disposable part-time-job money they’ve ever had since living on their own, and they’ll spend it on ridiculous things a company can’t justify. That kind of pointless fun is invincible. Adults lose when the strongest species appears: a university student with unbeatable time and overheated passion entering the game.”
It was a real scales-from-my-eyes moment.
This guy had lived through the golden era of Niconico from the inside, so he knew adults can’t beat—or control—the “passion and power of bored young people.” That’s why, before “the ultimate monster who weaponizes that brief flash of youth” is born, a company has to leverage corporate speed: roll out big characters fast, establish themselves as the first mover, and harden the ground.
In that, I saw something for the first time: the genuine seriousness of an elite salaryman.
And then—because it was, in some miracle way, a thing with real odds of success—those kinds of “understanders” treated one particular existence as an important part: a young man named Nyalra, “the person who was watching all of the current Virtual YouTuber scene simply because he had nothing but time.”
They escorted me to conference rooms with great care.
An executive literally showed up at my share house in the middle of the night in a taxi. Looking back, it really was an actual “escort.”
And what happened?
Just as predicted, starting in summer, loads of young people jumped in—dreaming of a one-shot reversal through streaming. The stiff, awkward characters whose scripts were written to death by adults vanished on their own, while the former “idle kids” won: people with the agility to ride trends, games, and memes with reckless speed, and the ability to read social media like a sixth sense.
Open YouTube today and you’ll understand immediately.
The best answer turned out to be: companies find motivated amateurs, then let them do whatever they want.
And those “motivated amateurs” usually have some kind of track record already. That track record comes from thinking, “I’ve got time anyway, so I’ll try something”—posting MAD videos nonstop, attempting weird planned articles and tweets, wearing the miracles born from surplus energy like armor.
And that heat—so intense it ignores profitability—is insanely interesting. No one can beat momentum that slips outside the logic of the world.
Anyway, summer ends again this year.
During the break, plenty of people probably spent it all on YouTube, anime, and manga. That mysterious time might actually become your shortest path. Or it might not. The experiences that become future branching points don’t show up wearing an obvious face that says, “This will help your future.”
When I was watching Kizuna AI’s videos from the start and laughing at that unique atmosphere—shared even by early-adopter otaku overseas—I never imagined that the “feel” on my skin would become something big companies would want so badly they could reach out and grab it.
The older you get, the more that energy—the kind that comes from having infinite power—fades away.
That’s what it means to die as a subculture bastard.
So we have to stay idle. We have to.
If a friend calls you crying in the middle of the night, and you can’t talk with them until morning without thinking about tomorrow, then there’s no value in being alive at all.
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