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Paper short abstract:

I examine the ethical narratives shaping the moral experimentations of self-made independent Japanese Virtual Youtubers. I draw my digital ethnography on the work of Lacanian theorist Mari Ruti and Julia Kristeva's intimate revolt, to delimitate what I call posthuman revolt of ethical singularities.

Paper long abstract:

In the novel "Exodus of the land of hope" by Murakami Ryu, published and set in 2001, Japanese youth abandon the nation following the words of a young leader: "There's nothing in Japan. That's a dead country." Meanwhile, outside fiction, the collapsed economy turned the image of Japan as a "hopeless country" an unbearable reality.

Two decades later, a new wave of hopeful transformation has emerged. The kind of change I am focusing here is minoritarian, machinic and nomadic (Briadotti, 2002). Among the 7 million middle-aged individuals included in the demographic group collectively humiliated under the label of "The Lost Generation", and the now adults scorned as "Yutori Generation", there are thousands of women and men who exiled to virtual territories to become Virtual Youtubers since 2017. They chose virtual horizons to escape from shameful unemployment and poverty. Nonetheless, only few self-made and independent Vtubers have developed singular ethical projects, challenging the existing ontological constrains they have suffered in the "real world", to define freedom in their own hands by opting out the human becoming-more-than digital avatars. In this paper, I examine the open-ended ethical narratives that shape the moral moods and ethical experimentation of independent Vtubers. I draw my digital ethnography on the work of Lacanian critical theorist Mari Ruti on existential lack, singularity and creativity, and Julia Kristeva's idea of intimate revolt, to shape the contours of what I call virtually situated posthuman revolt of ethical singularities, emerging in particular, in the ethical projects of self-proclaimed Babiniku Ojisan.