VTuber Design Review: Mark Zuckerberg

[00:02] review for the up and coming vtuber Mark Zuckerberg look I try to avoid being overly critical of the designs of independent YouTubers unlike corporate YouTubers they can't afford skilled character designers and it is clear that

[00:19] Mark Zuckerberg doesn't have much money to spend on his model you know that is fine investing in an over-the-top model with all the bells and whistles isn't going to make you a successful YouTuber what is more important is that you have

[00:34] an engaging personality to back it up or in my case talk about really interesting subjects and hope that I seem interesting by the transitive property I believe that a good YouTuber design should either reinforce a person's

[00:49] content by complementing it or by contrasting against it so with one look at crazy Ollie you know she is high energy and she's over the top this tells you everything you need to know about an ollie stream on the other hand tally has

[01:05] a cool elegant gothic look that contrasts with her very adorkable nature the thing is that contrast makes her nature stand out even more however Mark's design nothing stands out about it it seems to be the most default

[01:22] character I've ever seen in a universe of possibilities this is what he picked his design uses a lot of Grays and Browns these neutral colors typically don't stand out there are some people who've made great things with these

[01:38] colors but this isn't one of them I do like the fact that Mr Zuckerberg has leaned into a design that is more stylized it is starting to Edge Into The Uncanny Valley so the stylization is doing a lot of work to reduce that

[01:55] feeling of this cruel horror you might feel though this might be just a taste thing I think it could be slightly more toony to avoid The Uncanny Valley more toony to avoid The Uncanny Valley more perhaps by having a black outline okay

[02:08] here is Mark Zuckerberg's updated design it Remains the most boring YouTuber designs I've ever seen however I have to confess that I'm not familiar with this content perhaps that's the gimmick being incredibly unengaging I suppose there is

[02:26] a niche for everything I have to say while the character design is uninspired the modeler is working their ass off to make this look good the top has a really nice texture to it they've also added a few surface imperfections and tiny

[02:43] little blemishes to the skin nothing that stands out but when you look at it makes the skin look more realistic avoiding the unnatural smoothest that makes you see something as being artificial also it looks like we've got

[02:57] a little bit of subsurface scattering or the model maker has faked it by using colors to give that feel very good work there it is a Pity but so much effort being put into a design that is in so incredibly mid in my opinion okay let's

[03:13] drop this premise Mark Zuckerberg is not a full-time virtual content creator how about we genuinely talk about the avatars in Horizon world and why they

[03:25] look so bad compared to the avatars used by YouTubers and almost every other person chatting in the 3D I think the best way to work out what is happening is to consider the arc that technology genuinely goes through Tech starts in an

[03:42] genuinely goes through Tech starts in an experimental phase created and used by the researchers who are developing the thing then it moves into the early adopter phase where people who are genuinely interested in the next big

[03:55] thing pick up the tech after the early adopter phase there are two possible adopter phase there are two possible routes commodity usage broad usage by the population or Niche usage only a few people ever

[04:10] use that technology I'll give an example During the period of mid 1940s to 50s people were experimenting with radar discovered that microwaves could heat things this is the experimental phase use of microwave heating was limited

[04:25] research and restoring hamsters from cryosleep in the 1950s through 1960s microwaves at that time period were very expensive quite large and needed a water

[04:39] cooling system like an overclocked gaming rig so their use was limited to some high-end applications and people who were using the technology for the novelty of it then by the 1970s the

[04:53] technology had improved to a point where it's small and cheap enough mainstream adoption into almost every household however that isn't the path for every however that isn't the path for every technology we have had lathe of one

[05:07] thought or another for almost as long as we've had civilization however not everybody has a lie it remains a niche item used by people who enjoy spinning things to high RPMs the thing about commodity technology is that you expect

[05:24] your technology to be used by people who are not as knowledgeable about it and less willing to invest time effort and money into making it work understanding

[05:36] this is how Apple got big with microcomputer graphical computers MP3 microcomputer graphical computers MP3 players smartphones watches and tablets it rode the wave of turning an early adopter product into a commodity product

[05:51] this was also Facebook's strategy commodifying having a presence on the internet it did this by trading the near infinite flexibility of HTML with the

[06:03] simple inflexible Facebook profile I think this is what matter is trying to do with VR lower the barrier of Entry not having the freedom to create a really great looking model is kind of the point if

[06:19] you can't have a Super Creative Design that everybody is on the same level with a simple character design also you might actually end up being able to sell Advanced Cosmetics for money some things that you can't do with a free-form

[06:36] system that allows you to upload meshes I don't think this approach is going to work though I can't see the problem Horizon worlds is trying to solve and I don't think VR is a mature enough Tech to become a commodity product what do I

[06:52] know I'm just an opinionated YouTuber Mark Zuckerberg is a rich person I am sure is done enough market and technological research to make a good decision about how he is spending his money rich people don't spend vast sums

[07:08] money rich people don't spend vast sums of money on very stupid ideas are all doomed before everything implodes please

[07:20] before everything implodes please subscribe to my channel