SO THIS SEEMS LIKE A THREAD FOR ME. As per my amazing video on menhera and parasociality. I will now commit some self plagiarism and copy ~~some~~ the totality of my ""essay"" (rambling) into here xoxoxoxoxo (sorry): ------------------ This takes us into the topic of “para-sociality”, if we are to follow the prefix literally a para-sociality would be something that is along-side sociality, a parallel sociality. But if we listen careful into the discourse surrounding “para-sociality” we come to understand it almost as sort of pseudo-quasi-sociality; a sort of mirage-sociality, almost there in the superficial sense but false in nature. A para-social relationship is characterised as an unilateral relationship that is false although having a one-sided appearance of authenticity or reality. If you are a Deleuze understander such as my self you will immediately see a bunch of “no-no” concepts and words holding together this understanding of para-sociality. Its a characterisation filled with convenience, petite bourgeoisie sympathies, and negative-freedom obsession. So? How ought we to approach this phenomenon of the internet era. The streamer, the v-tuber, the internet idol, the drama youtuber, the traditional celebrity, the movie star, etc.? What differs between them? What is the nature of the relationship between so-called “audience” and so called “creator”? I’ll focus particularly on the topic of V-Tuber adjacent, what I call, “heavenly persona” phenomenon.
I took the name “Heavenly Persona” from the “Shizuka” song of the same name, that sort of rending light overpowering darkness presence thing. To me the Heavenly Persona comes from the interaction between the exchanging of masks, as Deleuze understands of Nietzsche, who was only capable to go on living by taking-up masks, such as Dyonisius Crucified and the anti-christ and so on; the experience of otherness, and the blurring between reality as actuality and virtuality, allowing the coexistence of real-actor “honjin” behind the mask, and the mask as lived reality. And also the various “unmasked personas” that exist as masks in their own right. The grand-event of desiring to be enraptured by the “Heavenly Persona” in a sort of theophanic limit-experience I call “chasing the dragon” (borrowed from the drug term), the drive to get into personal possession of the masks, the reification of heaven unto the fertile earth: this is, the consummation of the “Gachi-Koi”. The “Heavenly Persona” appears from the moment the “Oshi” is eclipsed. Being a “Oshi” is being a mere supporter of a mask; this is to say, to participate in the agreed upon social relationship of the veneration of idols in the commodified world of capital. This idol fetishism is also a form of commodity fetishism once again. However, the twilight of all idols is upon us. The acceleration of the idol-world will also lead its unravelling into singularity, this is to say, the destruction of it humanness, this is to say, the profanation of its ritual. The “Gachi-Koi” complex appears as a break in the flow of this ready-packed, pre-digested, already-consumed desire; the machine malfunctions; but the Gachi-Koi is a mere interruption, it is not yet capable of assembling itself into a radical new conformation of mask-desire; but if the “Gachi-Koi” complex finds itself realized, this is to say, if the Heavenly Persona’s radical otherness separates the subject from itself and it’s own milleu such that every sign in the subjects world is replaced by a copy that is now “corrupted” by the Heavenly Persona’s light; then we might say that a new wholly different repetition of the previous “Oshi” desire is born from the interruption.
While the simple relationship between viewer and streamer is indeed simply described by “quasi-pseudo-relationship”, not in its one-sidedness but rather in its simulacra, in its revulsive surrogacy; not in its collective or individual fantasy, but in its exchangist relation; it is the concept of exchange that turns it into “an almost not quite” “false” “relationship”; but since the the very same character of any “real” social relationship is based on the same exchangedness, in the potlatch of orgiastic gift-exchange that maps the relationships between things and people in the surface of the socius; it is more of a quasi-relationship than a pseudo-relationship. It is quasi because it is borderline, it is quasi because the destruction of the limit that separates viewer and streamer is the destruction of the streamer himself. And it is in this side of the barricade that “Gachi-Koi” falls, and why while some idols avoid it like the plague, others, in an almost Bataillian perversion, like to play around with its danger. Gachi-Koi, in code-switching the frayed connections of the “Oshi-system” threatens to erase the barrier than exists between listener and streamer. And since the greater mass of internet discourse, self-regulated both by machinic and humanistic-enlightenment algorithms, is of a reactionary nature, of course the greater moral discourse moves itself in droves against the phenomenon of “Gachi-Koi”, viewer promoted or otherwise.
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An addendum about commodity fetishism: the comparison with commodity fetishism is indeed valid, because of the intellectualizing transformation of a real relationship between people is subsumed under an imagined relationship between things. The streamers do not walk themselves into the market and so on.
------------- PS. I'm probably in a state of mania. (And was then) (I was maniac then, I'm maniac right now)
As per my amazing video on menhera and parasociality. I will now commit some self plagiarism and copy ~~some~~ the totality of my ""essay"" (rambling) into here xoxoxoxoxo (sorry):
------------------
This takes us into the topic of “para-sociality”, if we are to follow the prefix literally a para-sociality would be something that is along-side sociality, a parallel sociality. But if we listen careful into the discourse surrounding “para-sociality” we come to understand it almost as sort of pseudo-quasi-sociality; a sort of mirage-sociality, almost there in the superficial sense but false in nature.
A para-social relationship is characterised as an unilateral relationship that is false although having a one-sided appearance of authenticity or reality. If you are a Deleuze understander such as my self you will immediately see a bunch of “no-no” concepts and words holding together this understanding of para-sociality. Its a characterisation filled with convenience, petite bourgeoisie sympathies, and negative-freedom obsession.
So? How ought we to approach this phenomenon of the internet era. The streamer, the v-tuber, the internet idol, the drama youtuber, the traditional celebrity, the movie star, etc.? What differs between them? What is the nature of the relationship between so-called “audience” and so called “creator”? I’ll focus particularly on the topic of V-Tuber adjacent, what I call, “heavenly persona” phenomenon.
I took the name “Heavenly Persona” from the “Shizuka” song of the same name, that sort of rending light overpowering darkness presence thing. To me the Heavenly Persona comes from the interaction between the exchanging of masks, as Deleuze understands of Nietzsche, who was only capable to go on living by taking-up masks, such as Dyonisius Crucified and the anti-christ and so on; the experience of otherness, and the blurring between reality as actuality and virtuality, allowing the coexistence of real-actor “honjin” behind the mask, and the mask as lived reality. And also the various “unmasked personas” that exist as masks in their own right.
The grand-event of desiring to be enraptured by the “Heavenly Persona” in a sort of theophanic limit-experience I call “chasing the dragon” (borrowed from the drug term), the drive to get into personal possession of the masks, the reification of heaven unto the fertile earth: this is, the consummation of the “Gachi-Koi”.
The “Heavenly Persona” appears from the moment the “Oshi” is eclipsed. Being a “Oshi” is being a mere supporter of a mask; this is to say, to participate in the agreed upon social relationship of the veneration of idols in the commodified world of capital. This idol fetishism is also a form of commodity fetishism once again. However, the twilight of all idols is upon us. The acceleration of the idol-world will also lead its unravelling into singularity, this is to say, the destruction of it humanness, this is to say, the profanation of its ritual. The “Gachi-Koi” complex appears as a break in the flow of this ready-packed, pre-digested, already-consumed desire; the machine malfunctions; but the Gachi-Koi is a mere interruption, it is not yet capable of assembling itself into a radical new conformation of mask-desire; but if the “Gachi-Koi” complex finds itself realized, this is to say, if the Heavenly Persona’s radical otherness separates the subject from itself and it’s own milleu such that every sign in the subjects world is replaced by a copy that is now “corrupted” by the Heavenly Persona’s light; then we might say that a new wholly different repetition of the previous “Oshi” desire is born from the interruption.
While the simple relationship between viewer and streamer is indeed simply described by “quasi-pseudo-relationship”, not in its one-sidedness but rather in its simulacra, in its revulsive surrogacy; not in its collective or individual fantasy, but in its exchangist relation; it is the concept of exchange that turns it into “an almost not quite” “false” “relationship”; but since the the very same character of any “real” social relationship is based on the same exchangedness, in the potlatch of orgiastic gift-exchange that maps the relationships between things and people in the surface of the socius; it is more of a quasi-relationship than a pseudo-relationship. It is quasi because it is borderline, it is quasi because the destruction of the limit that separates viewer and streamer is the destruction of the streamer himself.
And it is in this side of the barricade that “Gachi-Koi” falls, and why while some idols avoid it like the plague, others, in an almost Bataillian perversion, like to play around with its danger. Gachi-Koi, in code-switching the frayed connections of the “Oshi-system” threatens to erase the barrier than exists between listener and streamer. And since the greater mass of internet discourse, self-regulated both by machinic and humanistic-enlightenment algorithms, is of a reactionary nature, of course the greater moral discourse moves itself in droves against the phenomenon of “Gachi-Koi”, viewer promoted or otherwise.
-----------------
An addendum about commodity fetishism: the comparison with commodity fetishism is indeed valid, because of the intellectualizing transformation of a real relationship between people is subsumed under an imagined relationship between things. The streamers do not walk themselves into the market and so on.
-------------
PS. I'm probably in a state of mania. (And was then) (I was maniac then, I'm maniac right now)