VTuber Hand Shadow Puppets

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Part of a series on VTubers / Virtual Influencers. [View Related Entries]

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About

VTuber Hand Shadow Puppets is an exploitable meme series in which a virtual YouTuber's shadow is cast onto a wall with a spotlight shining on it, the source of the shadow being a hand making shadow puppets in various shapes or holding an object associated with that VTuber. The original meme was posted to X (Twitter) in early March 2024 and became the subject of photoshops and redraws over the following days, spreading to the /r/Hololive subreddit.

Origin

On March 9th, 2024, X^[1] user @tabakko posted a meme consisting of four images of a hand making shadow puppets on a wall. The puppets shaped by the hand represent various animals, including a cat and a dog. The cast shadows, however, are the shadows of anthropomorphic VTubers (shown below). The post gained over 78,000 likes and 11,000 reposts in 10 days.

Spread

The post inspired numerous edits depicting different VTubers and characters on the wall as hand shadow puppets. For example, on March 12th, 2024, X^[2] user @Yukirenga_noel posted a version of the meme in which the hand holds a duck in front of the light, casting a shadow of Oozora Subaru on the wall, garnering over 23,000 likes in a week (shown below).

On March 13th, X^[3] user @rokusketch posted a version of the meme referencing VTuber Vestia Zeta, garnering over 8,200 likes in a week (shown below, left). Later that day, X^[4] user @JQHNHARQLD posted a recreation of the meme referencing Usada Pekora, garnering over 7,100 likes in the same span of time (shown below, right).

That day, X^[5] user @Ginfutsuu posted a version of the meme referencing Shiori Novella, which was also posted to /r/Hololive,^[6] garnering over 2,700 likes and 600 upvotes respectively in a week. On March 15th, u/Moon_LL posted a version of the meme to /r/Hololive^[7] referencing Watson Amelia, garnering over 890 upvotes in four days.

On March 18th, X^[8] user @zwj71638001 posted a version of the meme referencing Koseki Bijou, garnering over 4,800 likes in a day (shown below).