Maytinee Kramer/ Opinion Director
A mini skirt, long blue pigtails, an upbeat personality and catchy tunes. If you’ve ever heard of Hatsune Miku, then you’ll know she is a Japanese pop sensation. She has performed concerts around the world and has even opened for Lady Gaga.
Despite her huge fanbase and mega fame, Hatsune Miku is not a real person. In fact, Miku is a Vocaloid, or humanoid persona voiced by a singing synthesizer application that was developed by Crypton Future Media back in 2007.
Essentially, she is a hologram.
Miku is the world’s first computer-generated pop megastar and has every right to be identified as so. She is a forerunner of a collaborative future in pop music and a pioneer in the music industry.
Miku allows for a new and inclusive model of music production. Her goal was to give users a great tool to create their own music, with a realistically generated voice. At the same time, Crypton’s goal was to expand the range of users beyond just professional musicians.
Miku also embodies a movement that was brought about by the internet and blurs the line between creator and user.
Because Miku is under a free social media platform where users can freely use her in any creation as long as it’s not for commercial profit. That means her voice, her appearance and her design can be altered in any creative format and shared on the Internet. This allows for thousands of fans to interact with not only Miku, but other fellow fans as well.
Additionally, the “hologram” component of Miku is revolutionary in the fact that all her music — including the songs performed in concert — is written by fans, some of whom are not musically inclined or have never felt empowered to write a song before. Some fans even profit off the viral hits.
Miku is a channel through which someone can express themselves and moreover, she is an extension of the way the digital culture has altered pop stardom. Because people are more reliant on social media as a means to stay in touch with the world, which at the same time has led them to become the sources and conveyors of contentment and information, fans are made more visible.
In essence, it’s actually the fans that have made Miku so commercially successful.
Holographic pop stars can never truly replace the human singer, but Hatsune Miku — without a doubt — does represent a beginning and is the image of the future of music. After all, her name does mean “the first sound from the future.”
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The opinions presented within this page do not represent the views of Panther Press Editorial Board. These views are separate from editorials and reflect individual perspectives of contributing writers and/or members of the University community.
Photo taken from Flickr.
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