Disclaimer: All names contained in this post have been deliberately made public by the person themself.
Model makers, riggers, musicians, artists, and all others involved in the making of vtuber shows are all carefully credited, since it would obviously be reprehensible not to do so, but the actual performer that portrays the Idol goes entirely uncredited. The performers are all experienced entertainment industry professionals, Hololive does not and has never contracted unproven talent. Most of them have IMDB pages but universally their biggest and most prestigious work is not listed there, because Hololive forbids it.
When Rebecca Cardenas went independent as Dooby one of the very first things she did was make her identity public specifically to take credit for some previous work she’s done. But even after going independent she is still seemingly contractually prohibited from taking credit for portraying Ame, something that might actually be illegal in my opinion. Rebecca should be able to list her time portraying Amelia Watson as part of her professional work experience.
I am not saying that all the talent should be forced to make their identities public, rather I think they should be credited by a name which they control. For example, the performer portraying Takanashi Kiara does not own that name and could not use that name when doing other work, but she does own the name Keekihime. So while some talent, like Karen Calanni playing Mori Calliope, would want to be credited by their real name, others, like Keekihime, might rather be credited by a stage name. The important part being that they control the name themselves and can use it as they wish.
Hololive refusing to credit the performers unfairly shackles them to the company and inhibits their professional careers, and that’s messed up
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Disclaimer: All names contained in this post have been deliberately made public by the person themself.
Dooby never explicitly said her name on stream, as far as I know. While “bragging” she even said “it doesn’t matter, you guys are gonna find my name anyways”, so it felt like she didn’t even really want people to find out. I don’t think that’s “deliberately making it public”.
And about the main topic, I’m actually pretty sure that they could talk about it if they wanted (like Dokibird did, although that was Niji), they just choose not to because… what would be the point? Pretty much everyone who watches Dooby/Keeki/Kson and the likes knows who they are/were. I just see it as a way to “separate” the two environments, not anything that’s actually enforced. It’s not like anyone wanting to hire Kson wouldn’t know about her past anyway.
What is enforced is the reverse, they can’t talk about private details on Hololive streams (and that’s why Ame couldn’t talk about the Emmy or her parents being cuban), but that’s just to “keep kayfabe” and avoid stalking issues.
(…) one of the very first things she did was make her identity public specifically to take credit for some previous work she’s done.
I don’t really keep up with Dooby so this is a genuine question - do you have a source for this? I’d love to confirm it from her rather than taking it on faith.
As for the premise of the post, there’s a reason for that. Both idols in general and various VTubers (including multiple Hololive talents specifically) had issues with stalkers, harassment and other similarl things in the past. Making their identities public makes it only more likely, especially with the size of Holo’s fan- and antibases. It’s also the reason why they no longer accept gifts that aren’t factory sealed (remember the wave of stalking cases using air tags?).
I’m not saying Cover does that only to protect their talents, they are a company after all. On one hand it give them a bit more leverage but there’s also a possibility of someone using their affiliation with Holo to prop up their other ventures - ones that might not be in an area Cover wants to be associated with (say one of the talents does porn and their Holo-porn identities are officially connected). This could lead to additional rules and vetting (talent has to stop their other activities, unlike now) or not giving them the chance they’d get otherwise.
I’m not saying I disagree with the idea of people being able to share what they do but I don’t think it’s as black and white as you make it sound (or maybe I just took it that way, apologies if that’s the case). Also, do we know what exactly their contracts prevent them from sharing? Is it:
- Don’t talk about being part of Hololive, period?
- Don’t talk about it while you’re still working with them?
- Can you share any info about your involvement after you leave and look for a new company for example?
Some more info on that could make the conversation a bit easier.
I don’t really keep up with Dooby so this is a genuine question - do you have a source for this? I’d love to confirm it from her rather than taking it on faith.
It’s in her Debut stream (1:01:15 if the timestamp isn’t working)
And as far as I know companies don’t forbid talents from talking about that stuff at all, people like Dokibird would be sued to hell and back if that was forbidden. A lot of talents (Kiara, Matsuri, Noel for example) have accidentally called themselves with “the wrong name” on their PL account and nothing happened afaik. The only thing I know is forbidden is to bring official hololive material into private streams, like Aloe/Delutaya accidentally did.
Clip from Doobys debut stream where she talks about various personal details. She doesn’t outright say her name but she deliberately drops more than enough details that anyone can just look up her IMDB.
Yes there is absolutely a problem of stalkers and harassment which is why it should obviously be up to the talent themselves if they want to be credited by their real name or by an anonymous stage name, the important thing is that they own the name and can therefore use it in contexts outside of hololive.
I think talent should be able to use the publics knowledge of their work with hololive to further other projects, that’s the whole point of being credited, to build fame to drive audiences to their future endeavors. These are professional performers often at the start of their careers, building an audience is often even more important than simply having the experience, movie studios don’t pay Tom Cruise millions just because of his acting skills, they do it because his very name is valuable and will increase viewership. Credit holds tangible value which the hololive talent are being denied.
As for the specifics of the contract, obviously Cover doesn’t publish those for general viewing, but based on the talents behaviors around the subject we can infer quite a few things. Some talent when speaking independently will sometimes allude to “their other job” or some such and lean on their audiences knowledge to fill in the blank, but they will always stop short of mentioning any specifics, no names, no places, and they will never say “hololive”. And this holds true even after they have left, which I find particularly concerning. From this we can infer that the contract is fairly strict in the non disclosure department. Of course this is ultimately all speculation and conjecture but given that none speak openly about it, it seems unlikely to be of the talents own choice.
