The Mad Scientist Of Vtubing

Good ideas are born of careful consideration – of reading the room and giving the people precisely what they seem to want. Great ideas are born of ignoring the room altogether and instead saying “OK, but what if I tried the dumbest thing possible?” Shindigs, a vtuber known for transforming Twitch into a stage for elaborate bits with chat in the starring role, is a master of this craft. He’s created a vtuber avatar that’s a talking gun. He’s turned chat into his GTA character’s intrusive thoughts. He made his stream into a high school anime. Shindigs is vtubing’s eternally-eclectic mad scientist, but he’s got one consistent ambition: to show everybody else what’s possible in hopes that they, too, will get a little weird with it.

This interview, originally conducted earlier in 2024, has been edited for length, clarity, and to bring portions of it into the present day. Also, disclosure: Shindigs is a friend of mine. We mostly talk about how much we appreciate Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski. Not his games – just him as a person.

Aftermath: How did you get started with all of this? What started you down the path of concocting increasingly-elaborate vtuber bits? 

Shindigs: I got into vtubing around the same time most people did: 2020. And I had seen streamers kind of do something very similar before that. But really, what was the tipping point was learning Live2D. My first venture into that was turning different objects into vtubers that I just thought were funny – like a McRib or a gun, which resonated with people. I’d been thinking about avatars for streaming for a very long time as something I would just love to be able to do, and there was technology beforehand that enabled that.

But I think it was the perfect storm of corporate vtubing or idol vtubing exploding in the West with more tools, with more people doing tutorials that the scene really blew up. And I think we entered an era that I've always wanted. In my head, I saw this world that had people who could be anything they wanted to be on stream. And it just happened.  

Aftermath: What was your first big experiment?

Shindigs: I can't remember what the very first one was, but the most memorable one was the 2020 BlizzCon. [The real event that year] was completely online [because of covid]. I had this avatar that was like the guy standing in the room where people are dancing around him, and he says, “They don’t know I’m a vtuber.” I was like, “Wow, this is gonna be the first BlizzCon without the Hilton hotel lobby,” which for people who don’t know is the super iconic lobby that people hang out in for that convention. 

So I found a picture of the Hilton hotel lobby, and I just made it my background. And I went live. I think in the course of a minute, I was like, “I'm going to do this.” I pretended that I was in the Hilton lobby. People would come into my chat, and I would just greet them as if we were meeting in real life. It came very naturally. Then that turned into a two-day [stream]. They weren't marathon streams, but that was the longest I’d ever streamed. They were, like, four-to-five hour streams, one per day. And we visited all the BlizzCon sites – not the actual convention, but things around Anaheim that people would be familiar with.

Aftermath: I remember! I was there, haha. Or “there,” anyway – in chat. 

Shindigs: When I think back, that was the genesis. Up to that point, I remember doing similar-ish things like trying different vtubers every stream, but that kind of changed my brain chemistry in a way. After that, I did one or two more concepts around it, and then I didn’t pick it up until a year or two later.

Aftermath: Why the lag time? What happened?

Shindigs: The vibe was like, “OK, it had its moment. I'm gonna move on to other things like normal streaming, making interactive streams, a funny channel, partner awards” – things like that. But the thing that really drew me back in is this other idea I had where chat could use text-to-speech [functionality] to talk to me. This is something that streamers have been doing for a long time. But the idea that I really wanted to pursue was that each chatter would be assigned to a specific character. So they had to play a persistent personality, so to speak, and to take it even further, it wouldn't just be one chatter per character; it would be “This group of ten people will be assigned to one person, this group of ten people will be to another.” So it'd be a way to bring more people in.

The first memory I have of that was, I made a board room and I called it “the Twitch executives’ meeting run by Twitch chat” or something. We were just spitballing really stupid ideas of how to make Twitch weirder. And I was like, “Wait, this is really fun,” because in that moment, I realized I could literally talk to chat and someone would be talking back to me. This mess of a thing would literally talk back to me. And I could respond to each one as a different person. So then I started pursuing that a bit more. That started evolving more from there.

Aftermath: Why do you think there aren’t more streamers and vtubers going all out in this particular way?

Shindigs: I do think there are a lot of people going all out in different dimensions. I think some people go really all out in making their stream as close to a game as possible, or role-playing, or just being a really good vtuber. Especially in 2023 and 2024, people have really been waking up to what you can do. That's why I started finding [and highlighting] people doing really crazy things. 

But I think the unique thing that I'm trying to pursue that I only see a handful of people doing is [a] continued thread from the BlizzCon stream. It's this idea that, on a very surface level, it's like a roleplay stream, right? Chat is in on the RP, and the streamer is in on the RP. The simplest way to think about it is almost like a “chat plays D&D” thing with the streamer with text to speech. You're the Dungeon Master, and then you guide chat through different things. I've done a “chat plays D&D” concept, and I actually don't use D&D rules. It's completely made-up RP; I'll show a troll, and I’ll pretend to be a troll, and then they will ask me to do something – like try to marry me or kiss me – and there’s no dice roll. I'm just like, “No, I'm gonna fucking eat you.” It's all the moment. 

I think I'm really influenced by the whole tabletop gaming community around story games, which is generally more mechanic-light than D&D, but very rich in narrative and story. So when I bring that to streaming it's like trying to evoke a strong sense of being somewhere, a strong sense of scene – like the Hilton hotel. The Hilton hotel lobby is a really great example for that, because so many Blizzard fans have [a strong attachment to it]. You can even smell the lobby if you think about it. That is the thread I'm trying to keep pulling on – like we're not just in a stream, or you're not watching a screen. We can suspend disbelief, and we are in a place that has very strong and evocative aesthetics, experiences, etc.

Aftermath: Which experiments of yours have been most successful in evoking that sense of place?

Shindigs: The D&D one and the BlizzCon one. With the BlizzCon one, people will come back to me and say, “This was an amazing stream.” When I think about streamers, they have to consistently do the same thing. They’re the best game player or variety streamer, or doing funny events. But the BlizzCon stream can never happen again. But it’s embedded in so many people’s memories in such a strong way that people come up to me and keep telling me about it.

More recently, what I’m really enjoying is this thing around turning our stream into a mech anime where each person [in chat] is a different pilot. It’s incorporating an actual game into it, which helps ground it. It’s not just anything goes. It’s grounded in something real. And I just like old mecha anime.

Aftermath: More generally, what’s your favorite recent experiment, regardless of how well it evokes a sense of place? 

Shindigs: Recreating the infinite monkey theorem with Twitch chat. They can each type one word and have to complete works of literature. It wasn't too bad to make, but it was built on the past few years of experimenting. 

Aftermath: Did chat succeed? Did they complete any works of literature? 

Shindigs: They did. They completed "Hello from Twitch chat," "It was the best of times," and "To be, or not to be." I mean, it took maybe four-to-six hours total, but they did it. That's definitely less than an infinite amount of time.

Aftermath: At this point, do you think vtubing is the most consistently innovative area of livestreaming? I’ve seen regular streamers do some pretty wild things, but many of them are bigger names with, like, entire production crews behind them. It seems like what you’re doing is way less resource-intensive, which makes it more accessible. 

Shindigs: I mean, I’m most familiar with vtubing. The streamers that I feature are ones I’m kind of naturally drawn to. So for me, vtubing is where all the interesting things are happening because on a fundamental level, it’s easier to make a channel point that throws a rock at a vtuber’s avatar and nobody gets hurt versus doing that for a real person. Not to say that injury is innovation, but there are things that can be done digitally that can’t [otherwise]. 

But I think more streamers in general are trying to go deeper on interactive streams. I think the thread everyone collectively is pulling on are things like Sammi [streaming assistant] and Streamer.bot [interactivity tools], and vtubers are adding an extra flavor to it given that their avatars can be flipped upside down, and they can have things thrown at them, and they can be in different spaces. Whereas flesh streamers will have to think of different ways to interact. Like, there was a guy who, every time you subscribed, bubbles got blown in his face. But that’s a bit more complicated to do.

Aftermath: Do you think you’ll ever pivot to a less chaotic, subject-to-change streaming format, or do you consider consistent inconsistency to be one of your strengths? 

Shindigs: This year I’m trying to stick on ideas longer, because sometimes people on Twitter or Discord will tell me “I really liked the stream you did, and I just missed it.” And I just don't do it again. I haven't done a D&D stream in a while. So I want to do ideas more consistently, because it gets more people to experience them, and now that more people are stopping by, it just makes sense. That's just a quirk of myself: I do things for a bit, and then I try the next thing.

The only goal I have to keep growing is, I have a few ideas I think are interesting, and it’s just a matter of going down the list and completing them – exploring what makes them interesting. Everything else afterward is super nice. Whatever happens happens, but it’s really just tapping into ideas one by one.

Aftermath: Of the vtubers you’ve highlighted on Twitter, do you have any favorites? Or any you’re most inspired by in your own creations?

Shindigs: One streamer I’ve been watching for a while that I do take a lot of inspiration from is PickyChannel. She was one of the first streamers I’ve seen that had super evocative scenes in the sense that she really pushed the envelope to really frame her avatar like she’s in a place. She does these streams where she’s watching a walking-around-Japan video, but will move her avatar in a way that looks very natural. Like if you look at it for two seconds, you’re like “Wait, is she actually there?” 

Every vtuber I’ve featured has spawned from this, because I’m like “If you like this, I know plenty more with similar vibes to this.” Her channel has  really great framing around, like, she’s on a train and talking [and] a lot of walking streams. Concepts of being on vacation – things like that. They’re kind of like chatting streams, but they’re meant to make you feel like you’re there with her on the train or on the beach just having a conversation, you know?

These two [other] streamers, Julieee and Tyjiro, are pretty crazy because they draw these entire worlds. So Julieee, the lore is that she’s the mayor of this doodle town, and she moves place to place and talks to these different NPCs who can be chat or text to speech. And yeah, it’s crazy – completely mind melting. It’s insane that someone not only drew this world, but they are now walking around and bringing you around for the story.

Tyjiro is doing something similar: putting a lot of effort into building this world around him. But I think the thing that makes him unique is, depending on where he is in the world, he redraws his avatar for whatever scene he’s in. He’s not 3D, so he can’t just rotate himself around the Y axis. He could have been 3D; that’s better tech for moving around the world and looking around, but the style of him being this cartoon character that changes frames – like more of a traditional cartoon – really works for the stream.

Aftermath: What are your goals and ambitions for vtubing at this point? What do you want to focus on next?

Shindigs: Adding more concepts around live music in vtubing. And like, that’s not a thing that is new. There are vtuber concerts happening all the time, vtubers doing karaoke. They build grand stages. They’re evoking a sense of place, too – so none of that is new. But for me, it’s about pursuing, like, being the guy at a party subjecting everyone to your YouTube algorithm. You’re like “I love this music, and you’re gonna listen to it” or “I love this YouTube video; we’re gonna see it.” Most concerts that I think people watch are idol concerts and things like that, which I think are excellent. They’re super grandiose and awesome. But the other side of that is, who’s doing the vtuber noise concert where their avatar gets completely distorted along with the sound? 

I think the one ambition I do have is showing people what’s possible. And I’m not the only guy, right? I think for some people, it’s like “Oh, he’s the guy who’s doing that.” But I think part of the ambition is for myself to show what’s possible in the livestreaming and vtuber space and [the other part] is to highlight people who are doing the same. I think it’s really gratifying to spotlight other people, and people getting excited about that is really fun.

It’s a whole new canvas that involves a collaboration with your community and viewers. The closest analog I can think of is, it’s almost like game development. The scale at which some of these people are producing their streams is almost like making a new video game. But it’s not exactly a video game, right? Because there’s a viewer-streamer dynamic. There’s a chat. But in many ways it is like a video game because there’s role-play and interaction. 

All the exaggerated stuff I write online [when spotlighting creators], I kind of believe that on a deep level. At first I thought it’d be funny to write something clickbait-y, but at the same time, that is how I really feel. I truly, sincerely feel that about these creators. I really am that hyped up about them. It makes me extra happy that people are paying attention, because I just do this bullshit to my friends. I used to just send them clips like this on Discord, or one time people were at my house and I had a stream on, and I was like “Look at this one! It looks like they run their stream through an actual fucking VCR, dude! That’s crazy!” And they were like “Yeah, that’s kinda cool.” So now I’m basically subjecting everyone to my tastes, which is awesome.

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