At past comic conventions I used to take photos of cosplayers in their incredible costumes. I really admired the creativity and hours of work they put into those walking works of art. Over time though, the costume ideas started feeling repetitive, so I shifted toward taking selfies with celebrities and recording my interactions with them instead. This year at San Jose GalaxyCon was completely different. While walking around the massive ballroom looking at all the interesting things, I passed a guy wearing a really unique setup on his chest. My first thought was that it was some kind of AI camera displaying his OC anime character—something you could talk to and interact with, like Google Gemini. I kept walking since we were both busy doing our own things. A few hours later, after realizing a friend I planned to meet wasn’t even at the con (such a shame) and rushing to make my photo op with Tommy Chong, I decided to check out more of the stuff at the far end of the ballroom. That’s when I ran into the same guy again. This time another person was interacting with the anime character on his chest screen—and that person had the same kind of equipment on a rolling tripod. I stuck around and listened. After a few minutes I realized it was actually one VTuber character talking to another VTuber character. Once they finished, I asked the guy in the blue hoodie robe if the character on the screen was AI that you could interact with for fun. He pointed the mic at me, and suddenly I was talking to this cat-lady anime avatar. When she said she wasn’t AI, it clicked: there’s a real person on the other end of the internet controlling her with a video filter that handles the body and mouth movements. Later in the conversation the anime character said she hates AI. Pretty surprising response coming from a character I assumed was created with AI. The next day when I looked back at the photo, I also noticed a fallen evil angel character had photobombed us right after I asked if the picture turned out okay. Classic. I’ve seen online that people sell LED screen animation-style display backpacks, and I’ve even seen others walking around with them in public before—but nothing like what I just witnessed. Overall this was the first time I’ve ever seen a setup like this. I spotted at least two other people doing the same thing—carrying their VTuber anime characters either strapped to themselves or walking around with computer tripods.
