I developed an interest some years ago due to VTubing's rising popularity/influence. Success is more interesting than failure to me, so I chose to observe a VTuber who I thought had potential that had not been realized yet (room for growth). Fortunately, she was playing a game that I was curious about at the time (Alien Isolation). The VTuber called herself ironmouse and though I lost interest in her fairly quickly (around when she joined the group Vshojo), I recently checked back and found that she had done well for herself since then. Others that I had a tangential interest in (the few whom I can recall) seem to have disappeared for some reason or another, which wasn't too surprising to be honest.
As you can probably tell, it has been some years since reviewing the VTubing scene and the landscape has changed somewhat. So I find myself here in this thread because now I am at a disadvantage in recognizing patterns for success (or in some cases their appeal). To put it another way, I am out of touch with current trends/talent in addition to likely not being the target demographic anyway.
My interest is more clinical(?) in that I am not personally invested in the success/downfall of any particular VTuber and more interested in the social mechanics/functions/dynamics of successful VTubing.
The VTuber entity at its core is part corporate, human, and invented persona. Some lean more on corporate support, others on their crafted persona, while others have a more natural/personal appeal. Even so, having so many components contributes to them being inherently unstable entities and prone to failure, which is why finding a relatively stable/successful model is more interesting to me.
To be clear: the bar is fairly low and even more successful models tend to yield unhealthy effects (for the talent, fans, and "haters" alike).
