Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-24.214.82.9-20160329213055/@comment-24.214.82.9-20160403230410

@Angel Emfrbl, it's interesting how minecraft and vocaloid can be compared like this. They are very different things, but they've both broken off into their own little internet-based subcultures. Despite its moderately strong ties to the otaku fanbase, I've gotten the impression that vocaloid was always a subculture, but as you said, its becoming more of it's own thing and even less of an otaku thing. I'd even argue that there are subcultures within the vocaloid subculture itself-you have people that are producers, casual fans, artists, Engloid diehards, remixers...the list goes on. For example, I mostly listen to Japanese vocaloids, (and those Japanese vocaloids more than likely have Big 8 status) but I do like listening to the occasional English, Chinese, Spanish or Korean vocaloid-Avanna, Yuezheng Ling and Maika are some of my favorite non-Japanese vocaloids. In terms of my taste in vocaloid music, I'm somewhat diverse, but I do tend to favor Japanese vocaloids, and not everybody in the fandom likes Japanese vocaloids (especially the Big 8) as much as I do. People in the fandom may go as far to view me in a negative light because of my preferences. Things like this, people disrespecting other people's opinions without a second thought, causes a divide within the fandom, however, I assume those kinds of people always exist in any fandom. Not only do I listen to vocaloid music, but as I stated in my lengthy post above, I've just started using VY1v4. I only plan on making covers with her right now, but it'd be great if I could actually make an original someday.

So, I'm a vocaloid fan who generally favors Japanese vocaloids and is a novice VY1v4 user. There's a lot different things that factor into a single member of the fandom's interests and/or use of the vocaloid software, such as what vocaloids one likes or doesn't like, what genres of music one prefers to listen to, whether someone actively uses the actual vocaloid software, whether they make vocaloid originals, covers, or remixes of vocaloid songs. These are the kinds of things that generally determine how you're going to interact and/or not interact with certain subcultures within the general vocaloid subculture. I could've probably summed it up in less words, but the point I'm trying to make here is that "vocaloid fan" is a gigantic umbrella term.

I'm not a part of the online Minecraft community, so I don't know how vast it is in terms of each individual fan's interests, but I assume it's similar to the vocaloid fandom. They probably have mostly younger people in the Minecraft community, (Not that we're without our young fans) so that probably comes into play at some point as well.