In the week leading up to Christmas, once again a man, the programmer vedal987, is the most successful streamer on Twitch. He has created a chatbot that has become a streaming star since 2022 as a VTuber named “Neuro-sama”.
What kind of statistic is this? The site Steamcharts regularly evaluates who is leading in various categories on Twitch.
In the category “Largest Female Streamer on Twitch” from December 15 to 21, Vedal987 is in first place with 752,000 hours watched, while US streamer Emiru is in second place.
However, Vedal spends most of his time not streaming on his channel, at least not as himself; that role is taken on by “Neuro-sama”, an AI VTuber and chatbot that livestreams on Twitch and appears as a cute girl who answers all questions from viewers with a dry humor while being funny and quick-witted.
Programmer Runs Chatbot as a Full-Time Job
What is behind Neuro-sama? In an interview with Bloomberg, Vedal explained the background of his creation. He wants to remain anonymous, so his age and location are unknown.
According to Vedal, Neuro-sama uses a language model that responds to users’ questions and announces her answers with a cute voice through a “text-to-speech” application. Vedal says Neuro-sama is his full-time job.
The character was created in December 2022, received a new model in May 2023, and seems to be growing in popularity on Twitch.
If the programmer isn’t careful, Neuro-sama regularly tries to drive him to ruin:
Especially December 2024 was a great success for Vedal987, in that month he had 12,273 viewers on his bot.
Over the course of the year, the channel gained 47% in viewers and was watched for a total of almost 6 million hours. Apparently, many prefer the chatbot over a real person.
How is this being discussed? Streamer Asmongold uses the statistic to ask: “Are men perhaps the better women?”
In the comments, people are especially impressed by the AI’s progress: now the AI can remember people and conversations. Overall, he receives a lot of recognition for the work and competence he puts into his project.
Asmongold finds VTubers amusing. According to his thesis, VTubers act like a cheat code for women: they don’t have to wear makeup or get ready and can still appear as cute AI versions of themselves. With a chatbot, the person doesn’t even have to be present: Huge Twitch star explains: VTubing is “like a hack for female streamers”
