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“I was impressed by the heart-to-
heart communication between Diana
and fans. I became her fan when she “
read letters from fans and shed tears,”
Guo says. I think virtual
So far, Guo has spent RMB ¥1,000
(US $156) on buying animation mer- singers can
chandises and virtual presents. He up-
loaded A-SOUL’s spoof videos on Bili- overcome the
Bili in June and August 2021, which
attracted 970,000 total views as of De- limitation of
cember 7, 2021. real singers.
“In fact, A-SOUL’s appearance,vocal
and dance skills are not outstanding Virtual singers
compared to other virtual Youtubers.
But they continue to improve. I am never get tired, and
glad to witness their progress,” Guo
Li Jingyuan received A-SOUL member says. they can reach a
Carol’s fan-made doll this October In the fan group, some fans pro-
(Photo courtesy of Li Jingyuan) duce songs for virtual singers. Ste- very high pitch
ven Tan, a fan of the first Mandarin-
a virtual singer, represented by Luo speaking virtual singer Luo Tianyi, is
Tianyi (洛天依) and Hatsune Miku ( one of them.
初音未來). Their vocals are synthe- “As a composer with no reputation ”
sised using Yamaha’s Vocaloid, a voice and not enough budget, it was difficult
synthesiser software, which allows us- to find a singer for my compositions.
ers to pay for voice database and com-
pose songs.
The other type is a virtual You-
tuber or virtual live streamer like A-
SOUL. Behind the virtual idol, there is
a real human actor who never shows
up on camera. By using motion cap-
ture technology or software, the ac-
tor’s movements and expressions are
reflected on the virtual image.
The scale of the virtual idol indus-
try in China increased 70.3 per cent
year on year to RMB ¥3.46 billion (US
$540 million) in 2020. It is predicted
to reach RMB ¥6.22 billion (US $970
million) this year, according to Chi-
nese data mining and analysis plat-
form iiMedia Research.

Love across Screens
Alex Guo became a fan of A-SOUL
after watching its member Diana’s
birthday live streaming on March 7,
which was his first click on A-SOUL’s
live channel. Steven Tan’s NetEase CloudMusic page