I'm a regular viewer of a few "popular" vtubers Amano Pikamee, Mori Calliope and, most recently, Kureiji Ollie. They are all great performers; Calliope's... actor? even had/has a separate and quite successful music and visual art career as DEMONDICE's Karen that started well before being recruited by Hololive.

So what about the performers that didn't already have a performing career?

There's an industry standard around many performers working in "new media" (and what a fucking term that is for a multi-billion dollar industry) that not only denies them credits but enforces a complete lack of their own identity. It's most easily visible with vtubers; note again that there is no easily-visible connection between Mori Calliope and DEMONDICE. You can look at Kson ONAIR, another active vtuber who was previously the performer behind Kiryu Coco; while lucky enough to have parlayed her success as Coco into growing her (like Karen, already-extant) fanbase as Kson, and the connection between Kson and Coco being rather an open secret, you will not find anything linking Coco to Kson "officially" anywhere. You can also see it in other types of online content; for example, the cook performers for Chefclub receive no onscreen credits, and, indeed, it's hard to impossible to find credits for them anywhere (except, of course, for the founding Lang brothers that own and profit from the property).

This is reprehensible, and an intolerable break from centuries of practice in theater, stage, cinema and television. The modern standard since the 70s (for English-speaking TV and cinema, at least) has been credits for all workers on a production barring extras. Not only the performers, but everyone including the grips and carps, gets a credit. Stage won't always include all the crew in the show programme but will always at least include the entire cast. This is important because a performer's resume or portfolio is their list of credits! In many cases, this is also true of technical/crew roles; a lighting designer, for instance, will grow their career based on the lighting they did on past shows.

So how the hell does this work if even the performers not only don't get credits but are contractually barred from claiming them?! It's obvious that this is an industry norm that only helps large agencies like Cover Corp or ANYCOLOR Inc. (the companies controlling Hololive and Nijisanji, respectively). The fact that it's a norm that's so pervasive that even independent performers who otherwise might be perfectly happy to claim their performance credit as a vtuber, streamer or what-have-you might be hesitant to do so is a real problem, and the fact that some fans - or, indeed, other performers who have bought into this idea - are happy to discipline performers who link their real identity with their work on the basis of "immersion" is absolutely criminal!

Claim your credits! Build your portfolios! Your career as a performer shouldn't be circumscribed because a bunch of capitalists have found a new way to keep their talent under their thumb.

Also: Ada Basilisk and Koffy are independent vtubers who are friends of mine and already know this stuff and deserve support, check them out!