VTubing Is Missing This Type of Agency. Someone Make It

I’ve been thinking a lot about boys’ love. More specifically, Boys’ Love Live. Last week, I wrote about an upcoming yaoi-themed VTuber group, featuring six different male VTubers set to engage in “voice-driven drama, chaotic flirting, and dangerously high levels of chemistry.” Now, don’t get me wrong. I love my fujoshi friends. But wouldn’t it be super swell if there were a yuri VTuber group too? You know, something for the himejoshis among us?

At least, I think so. VTubing has plenty of girls’ love fans, and it’s time we had our own yuri agency to pander to our love of all things women. Just to be clear, the following is an opinion piece reflecting my personal feelings on the role that yuribaiting plays in the English VTubing industry, as well as a data-driven argument for the establishment of a yuri VTuber agency.

Yuribaiting, the secret sign that a yuri VTuber group would make a killing

VTubing already has a reputation for yuribaiting, a term for hinting at F/F engagement without outright demonstrating or showing it. Female VTubers regularly compliment each other during collabs, with some VTubers even flirting with each other on stream. The tactic is not uncommon during collabs within an agency, as, for example, genmates may yuribait to gain interest from viewers. Especially male viewers. After all, VTubing does de facto lean toward a male viewership, with Hololive reporting that over 80% of its audience is men.

Traditionally, certain F4M fans in VTubing have argued against the formation of an F4F-oriented VTuber ASMR agency, claiming that there are not enough women into F4F content to warrant interest. While I don’t believe this is necessarily true, F4M fans actually fail to realize that F4F is incredibly popular with men. Ironically, even though I’m a lesbian VTuber who creates ASMR content for other queer women, the F4F ASMR industry is somewhat notorious for having a strong male audience. Before my YouTube channel was terminated, men made up the lion’s share of my F4F viewership on the site; as I told the r/VirtualYouTuber subreddit back in March, only 10% of my viewers were women.

Granted, men do not make up the majority of my fanbase. My actual community — regulars who hang out in my streams, those who spend time in my Discord — is mainly made up of women and nonbinary viewers. But F4F has a similar appeal to mainstream lesbian pornography. It depicts women interacting with each other, which tends to attract both men and women. Including gay women, as I wrote about previously on Substack. In other words, F4F has equal opportunity appeal. And, in my personal opinion, there are far more women hungry for F4F content than your average VTuber fan assumes. If we look at data on queer women in the anime fandom? It’s safe to assume that VTubing has a similar overrepresentation of bi, pan, and lesbian women, one often swept under the rug.

Among anime fans, women are more likely to be queer. That’s likely true of VTubing too

English VTubing has strong roots in the English anime fandom. And female anime fans tend to report a queer sexual orientation at a far higher rate than the average populace. According to the 2021 research work Transported to Another World: The Psychology of Anime Fans, which analyzes several years’ worth of sociological studies by the International Anime Research Project, only 56.5% of women in the anime fandom consider themselves straight. In comparison, 88.2% of men surveyed reported a heterosexual orientation. Per the report, “women in the fandom are nearly 4 times more likely than men in the fandom to identify as LGBTQ+.” Over 32% of con-going anime fans surveyed in 2019 reported a gay, bisexual, or pansexual sexual orientation, along with nearly 1/4th of online fans surveyed.

In my personal experience, many female VTubers in the ENVTubing space also fall somewhere within the LGBTQ spectrum. A huge portion is attracted to women, whether bi, pan, or, yes, even gay. We don’t just play gacha games with “cute girls doing cute things” to attract viewers. We, too, want to see the cute girl do a cute thing. In some cases, our attraction to other women introduced us to VTubing in the first place. Before my best friend was my best friend, she was my oshi. I found her voice, style, and ASMR approach incredibly appealing. Similarly, Projekt Melody inspired me to become a lewdtuber partially because I thought her lewdtubing streams were enticing. I respected her style as both a fellow sex worker and, well, a lesbian.

Similarly, many women in the ASMR space listen to each other’s work out of admiration, not just “studying the competition.” No better example exists than lewdtubing, where plenty of queer women seek out collab opportunities in order to create content involving F/F interactions, even if in the framework of F4M. Just think of how many popular AVTubers are begging for futa collabs with their fellow female talents. So, given the proliferation of yuribaiting that already exists in VTubing… why not subtract the “baiting” from the equation? Why not bring on the yuri?

Bring on the yandere F4F VTuber ASMR group. Please. Please!

In short, I believe it’s time for someone to create some kind of yuri-focused VTubing agency or group. Imagine six or seven different VTubers, all appealing to different yuri tropes. The shy college girl who secretly (or not-so-secretly) likes girls, a Mommy goddess who wants to spoil her female worshippers, the monster girl with a soft spot for mortal women, the yandere girl-next-door who will eliminate any boy to have you, even the flannel-wearing werewolf futch with insane rizz, just to name a few. From there, these girls could collab with one another as if they were girlfriends, or exes, or enemies to lovers, or vying for the women in the audience, or maybe a mix of all four.

They’d flirt with one another, perform lesbian ASMR with each other, play out dates on stream for their audience, and even do such lascivious acts as (dare I say it) “holding hands.” And yes, there would be an endless supply of F4F audio content for gay girls and F4F-interested boys alike. From “Mommy Cuddles You Until You Fall Asleep” to “Your Futa Best Friends Reveals Her Dark Yandere Side.” Constant yuri for every himejoshi and himedanshi.

Don’t get me wrong. I’d love to see a “yuri VTuber agency” because I’m a lesbian who wants more lesbian stuff in VTubing. This fantasy is absolutely self-indulgent. However, I do think the English VTubing industry is sleeping on the yuri-oriented ASMR agency. Many VTubers are queer women, and many VTuber fans are, too. Ever since I became an F4F-oriented ASMRist in early 2024, I’ve discovered again and again that there’s a massive audience for F/F VTuber content. Would it still be an uphill battle for a yuri group or agency? I mean, absolutely; F4M is far more popular. But it’s not a coincidence that over 147,000 Redditors are part of the F4F-oriented subreddit r/GWASapphic. There’s a real audience for this kind of content, and there’s unsung potential for it among queer women in VTubing.

Give the girls what they want. Bring on the yuri VTuber agency, and let us sing our praises to the F/F goddesses. Until then, I suppose I’ll keep watching VTuber Legend: How I Went Viral After Forgetting to Turn Off My Stream and imagine what could be. I mean, every other VTuber is very gay for each other anyway. So, it’s not that far off from real life.