I have an odd inspiration for this essay. I’ve been watching a vtuber called Amelia Watson since she debuted four years ago, and today is her final stream before she ends her regular streaming activities. She’ll still be around in some capacity, and I imagine she’ll pop up again under a less corporate-controlled persona, but it’s still very much an end to the entertainment that I’ve been enjoying these past few years. She’s a small part of what I’ve done to entertain myself, and an even smaller part of my life in general, yet I’ve found myself shedding a few tears over these last few days as she does her final streams, collaborations, and projects. A natural question to ask, I think, is why?

Typically when a talent leaves a vtuber agency like this it’s called a “graduation,” a carry-over from Japanese idol culture intended to soften the blow. The talent has quit, for some reason or another, and you will no longer be seeing them. In the case of Ame, however, they explicitly don’t use that term. She’s no longer doing streaming activities, but they’ve been insistent that she isn’t graduating. She’s no longer doing the main part of her job, but she’s not quitting.

This is an event much more minor than a friend moving away, a celebrity you enjoy dying, or even that feeling when you realize a creator you follow hasn’t uploaded in years and probably never will again. I’ll be seeing Ame again in Hololive projects, I’ll probably be seeing her doing other things, she’ll still be active in the other talents’ lives and in the scene in general, and yet I’m still pretty sad that she is no longer streaming regularly as Ame.

It’s new territory in the vtubing sphere. No one’s really sure what it looks like, including Hololive, Ame, and the other talents, but it’s basically been confirmed we’re seeing her pretty soon despite all the send-offs this week. Everyone is sad, many tears have been shed, but she’ll be back soon. It’s a bit odd, actually, but even knowing it’s not that big of a deal I still find myself writing this to help process it.

karaoke and ame

One of the earliest things I latched on to with Ame were her karaoke streams. She wasn’t exactly a great singer, to be honest, but her karaoke was so much fun. It really was like sitting around while your friend is off singing some bad song poorly. You’re cheering them on, you’re laughing along with them, and you’re having a grand time.

I have some pretty rough days sometimes, where I walk upstairs after work and just feel my body and brain trying to sink into the abyss. I drag myself through supper, through taking the dog out, through some basic clean-up chores, and then I sink into the couch, unable to think about a real hobby. Writing? Programming? A board game with the wife? Even reading? All too much for my brain to handle.

Then I see a notification pop up on my phone. [unarchived] KARAOKE!!!! or something of the like, with a goofy picture of Smol Ame. I pop in my earbuds to not disturb my wife as she does her own thing, and I listen to a goofy gremlin sing songs for an hour until it’s time to get ready for bed.

It’s more than just something fun. Following someone doing these things for years, you see her slowly improve. You see when she puts out an official song and various covers with impressive quality. You see her learn to dance, moving around in official concerts with skill and energy that grows year by year. And all of this starts from someone singing along with a few goofy songs in the evening.

I’m not sure that I’d call it inspiring. Often I just sit and listen, playing a chill game on the side, and throw some random emotes into chat as she goes. I don’t start doing something major, but my fried brain calms down as I listen. It’s nice knowing that such a small, goofy thing has branched out into so many amazing projects, like I don’t need to do anything major to move forward.

the comfort of progress

More than the simple parasocial comfort of hanging out with a friend doing something fun, there’s a greater context to following someone do something difficult for years that lurks in the back of my mind. She’s having fun, but she’s also growing, improving, always making progress in climbing to some unknown height. I may feel stuck, but I can see how even some small, fun activity can move things forward.

Many people find comfort in things staying the same, but that requires some comfort and safety of its own. When daily life doesn’t feel right change is where the real comfort comes from, a way to break through to something better.

I feel stuck pretty often. It’s really just a feeling; I have so many ways in which I continue to grow, and it takes minimal reflection for them to come to mind. But on a day where I feel stuck, it’s because there’s nothing I feel I can do then to move forward. Maybe I’m busy, maybe I’m sick, maybe my brain just isn’t doing it. But I feel stuck, and it feels uncomfortable.

On those days, when an Ame karaoke pops up on my phone, I pop it open pretty much instantly. I’ll stay up late to watch for a bit. It’s not just fun and relaxing, but it reminds me of her earlier karaoke streams and makes me appreciate how much she’s grown. Even though it’s not me, even though I don’t even know her, it kicks my brain out of that stuck feeling and I feel that things are, truly, getting better as time goes on.

the inspiration of moving on

There’s been a lot of talk these last few days about how inspirational Ame is for others. She was a trailblazer for the English vtuber scene, she did so much behind the scenes to support her collaborators, she pushed the envelope with new, creative stream ideas that required new ways to work with her technology and community.

But to me a lot of that is showing her to be an impressive and talented individual, not exactly inspirational. She is truly remarkable and it contributes to why I love watching her, but I don’t exactly look up to those attributes. What I find inspiring is that, despite all the success she’s found and the fun she has in her current space, she’s still moving on to focus more on the things she values most.

Last night she did her final karaoke stream for members, a full 3D karaoke in her new studio where she could run and dance around, making full use of the 3D stage she’d built ages ago. At one point she said that, even though it was a fairly sad occasion, she hoped we were having fun because she was having a ton of fun. To her, being able to goof around in a weird space, rolling around on the floor with a bunch of gators with glowsticks cheering her on was what vtubing was all about.

We’ve seen nuggets of this over the years, with her blazing ahead and getting everyone 3D models for VR collabs and putting together big VR Chat spaces for them to play around in for events. For a charity event this weekend she put together a gigantic aquarium filled with marine life themed after every Hololive member, requiring many months of many collaborators working together. It’s a ton of work and she’s done it many times over the years.

But she also does a ton of other things. Putting aside personal life stuff that happens in the background, she has many big company events to be involved with, she does a lot of work to support others behind the scenes, and she has regular streams with games, chatting, and other random stuff that all take up her work time. If her passion is the 3D and VR work, where does that fit in to everything else?

ikigai is inspiring

This really may be my own projection on to her situation, but I figure that’s where a lot of inspiration sparks from anyways. My own job has so many moments where I’m dredging through tasks that I don’t mind but don’t fulfil me, and from there I’m moved on to tasks that actively burn me out, and then I go home and have tons to do in order to keep life going, and then… where are the bits that I enjoy from my work? Where are the tasks that make me feel like I’m making a difference? Where are the parts where I can really put my skills towards making things better? I’m generally doing quite well, I’m generally appreciated, but there’s still an incongruity where I’m not doing exactly what I should be doing to do things the best I can.

Ikigai is a Japanese term that, according to random articles and books I’ve read and no real language knowledge, has to do with finding purpose. It’s the intersection between the things you enjoy, the things you’re good at, and the things where you can make a difference in your community.

From the bits Ame has revealed about why she’s moving on, it seems like it’s more about pursuing what she sees as her ikigai than anything else. She’s taking a risk, leaving behind an environment where she has found lots of success in order to focus on the activities where she finds the most purpose. That, to me, is really inspiring.

comfort versus inspiration

In this way, I’m losing a source of comfort in seeing Ame’s streams, in watching her growth as as a streamer and idol, but I’m gaining a source of inspiration.

There’s a bit of a dichotomy between comfort and inspiration, I think. When you’re comfortable there’s a satisfaction with how things are, and there isn’t a need to change things. Comfort is something you can sit with, or maybe better put, something your brain wants to sit with. It’s the feeling of staying in bed on the weekend, reading a book rather than getting up to live your life. It’s something I greatly enjoy at times, but also something that puts off the uncomfortable parts of the day, the tasks we do to move through life.

Inspiration is something you can’t just sit with. If anything, I’m putting off comfort because of this feeling. I got out of bed today to write this essay, and I’m putting off my comfortable walk with the dog until I’m done (much to his chagrin, I should note). It pushes through the lethargy of comfort, lack of discipline, demotivation, and more in order to drive change. To be inspired is to be uncomfortable: it is an itch that won’t go away, needing more than a simple scratch to find comfort again.

It is rare for me to feel inspiration from a person. I struggle to make the connection between someone else’s actions and my own desires. The possibilities of my future are always there; it’s my own personal circumstances that make change difficult, and everyone lives a different life, so someone else’s journey never seems to inspire anything in me.

I feel like it speaks to how special Ame is that I’m inspired by her decision. I’ve done more writing today than I have in weeks, I’m itching to work on my projects, and I’m excited for what my future may hold. Leaving a comfortable situation to seek greater happiness is something rare to see and it’s something I wrestle with often.

Altogether I guess this is a long essay who’s point is simply: thanks for everything, Amelia Watson. You’ll be missed and you’ve made my life better.