Miku is being constructed as a gendered performer by her fans because the idea that she is sexualized is tied into a larger discourse of how weird Otaku (fans with obsessive interests in America) is and so it is not about Miku herself, it is more about Otaku, as they have this idea that all Otaku like 16 year old girls in short skirts are adored by other Otaku’s, so there is a creepy sexual element in it.
Hatsune Miku is an alpha numeric form, and all the songs that Miku sings in the concerts are written by the fans. To modify and interact with Miku, the diehard Miku fans get involved into a mode to produce their own compositions and step sequences, and also modify the music videos as per their taste. Miku is powered by Vocaloid 3, and the users can interact with it using the VSTi, called Piapro Studio. The vocaloids can be customized with costumes that can be unlocked while personalizing the accessories that instantly reflect in the song to be played.
Miku has a female persona which is a disadvantage of being exploited in the male dominated societies. Miku has seen exploitations on Playboy, and many others are exploiting Miku, which I believe is an inborn nature for craving of love, and this is a very sad feeling for all the Miku fans and admirers. There are millions of people who support Miku and many people’s lives is surrounded by the digital avatar, so people must not be involved too much in the product of their pop-culture interests.
Miku has international fan following and though she is a digitized version, unreal, she is
being exploited as hentai anime (cartoon porn in common language). Miku is an indication of an empty sign that exists only to be manipulated and consumed. The creators of Hatsune Miku, Crypton with support from the Vocaloid group designed Miku’s image, sound and made it flexible as open-source for the remix community to be crowd sourced. The creators have enabled interactive experience for the fans, by allowing them to contributors of this digital sensation.
Works Cited
Mikumentary. Dir. Tara Knight. 2007. Online Streaming. <http://taraknight.net/MIKUMENTARY>.
