Vtuber Collabs Are Hell 

Just saying, Mari is about to receive a MASSIVE influx of tiny content creators trying to collab with her after posting this

A lot of collabs are really unprofessional too... It's hard for me, to wanna even host them because I'm a people pleaser and it's hard for me to be firm... Honestly I've reached a point where I need to figure out my OWN content and secure a proper audience for myself before I go trying to share it.

Being ghosted sucks so much, but im happy that i havent let that deter me from asking people for collabs and the like! I just wished i wasnt so smooth brained so that i could think of more creative collab ideas other than games we share, but that's what improvement is for lmao

Literally all of this is so true...even with the editing community, I myself am an editor and when I ask people to Collab I do get ghosted sometimes, and when people ask to Collab with me, I sometimes ghost them as well, but hey I guess it's the same for everyone, I've recently got into the vtuber industry and it's honestly not that bad tbh, it would be a struggle to understand how to Collab with people and stuff like that, but if it's the same as the editing community, then hopefully I don't have that big of a problem lol 😅 (also I get nervous myself too when there's a bunch of people, so your not the only one 😭✊)

it's interesting how situations online reflect real life, and what one can learn and grow from it. As always, thanks for sharing your thoughts and opinions on the topic.

A wise man once said: JUST DO IT

I struggle at commenting on videos but you made me feel comfortable enough to do so. I've always struggled with collabs because of my social anxiety. Hell, i pulled out because i got nervous and anxious about too many people in a discord voice call. Now im taking a break from streaming and making videos on RU-vid because its more manageable to me. Thanks for making this video! It's very important to talk about.

WE'RE MAKING IT OUT OF OUR 2024 TAXES WITH THIS ONE 🗣🗣🗣🔥

Dont know if this is amazing advice or not, but it's nice seeing a bigger creator talking directly to other creators and giving advice based on lived experiences. I liked it

very good content and very real ! i totally had 0 collabs over 2023 because i just have no clue what i'd want to do in a collab, haha. though as you talked about, the important thing is, it really just takes the right idea and a click - it's so much more than just two people playing a game (which is totally what i thought about all the time when thinking of collabs lol) ! proper planning is just such a hard skill that so many of us are bad about, especially in a social setting with someone else in the picture... we'll get there someday !

Someone that you (probably) could collab with fairly easily is Rin Penrose (or any of her genmates)

to collab with someone like you or filian really sounds like a lot of fun. I saw that you play ATS, and I'm a irl trucker and enjoy ATS from time to time. Snow runner too. Also, Filian apparently isn't a furry either. But back on track, I'm not really all that nervous talking to other people, I just can't ever get a collab :P They're just a bunch of fun to do from time to time. Stuff like ATS, Palworld, The Finals, Payday, Ready or Not etc. My content is all on twitch and I never have vods because i'm a dummy, which I should probably start editing down videos *shrug*

Mari word of advice. People in general can't actually take hints as English is a hard language that no matter what people interpret what you or they say in a different way than what you intended or what they intended with whatever they said. The issue stems from one's own upbringing so while yes they can take a hint it just depends on what culture their hint system is on. Yes it is unfortunate that at times you might come on as too strong or not strong enough but it's whatever as there is nothing you really can do about it other than be direct with them. It's even more unfortunate if the person is neurodivergent as subtle hints are not concepts that can ever be understood then, and no this does not just apply to those on the spectrum

10:23 - MY COUCH NOooooooooooooo Sorry that just caught my attention You are absolutely correct about collabs, like everything you said it spot on and i even learned something, thanks alot!

Awwww I totally understand the anxiety of too many new people talking at once. Not for me either. You're fine Mari.

@3:39 The easiest way is to be part of the same agency and turn it into a gathering of employees. Subscriber count and exposure help a lot. @4:27 Play majong with 5 loli vtubers, off course or cheesy video games as a backdrop. Alternatively make some cringy reaction videos. 😉 @4:45 if you need inspiration, you find it everywhere. @6:31 Yes, the obvious one is viewership. @6:45 There is a correlation between subscriber count, viewer count and the quality of your content. It definitely helps if you are more established. @14:04 Exactly, you really should play majong with 5 loli vtubers or do some ice cream ASMR with Filian.

When I clicked on this video I was ready to disagree with at least some stuff said, but honestly I couldn't agree more with everything here. As a content creator it's always difficult to have to reject a collab, you hope the other person won't take it too personally but you have to protect yourself from those bad experiences. At first I thought it was enough if, looking at their streams, they seemed to be able to carry a stream without awkwardness or dead silences (and the content style wasn't uncomfortable for me of course). Then I had bad experiences. I thought my mistake was that I needed to make sure to have some talks before off-stream so we could build chemistry and be comfortable around each other... and then I had bad experiences because of a lack of planning the actual content like you mentioned. At the end of the day, people who are taking this as a job can't just say yes to anyone. It's a hard pill to swallow, but the "it has to benefit them" becomes a gigantic part of the equation... And honestly, doing all the preliminary checks and research + planning can take so much time, maybe for that creator it's better to flat out reject the collab because they can't allocate the time to do all of that!

I really needed to hear this as someone who is an anxious person by nature lol keep up the amazing input! ^^

I don't try to do collabs or raids for 2 reasons. First, I am either go with the flow, or lead the conversation. Which can be bad or good depending on the topics. Second, my brand might not be everyone's cup of tea. So, I don't raid or even post in chat or comments. Unless brought up. Because my brand is not the vtuber, it's the creative journey of art and /or stories. Plus, I'm tiny. Soooo.... Nothing to offer

11:00 typical public discord experience.

I was intruduced to your content through one of your interactions with Nux. My favorite content is generally Colabs because seeing how people bounce off of each other is great IMO, and the content is often better then the sum of the creators.

I really do understand the whole being too scared to join the discord call thing. I have missed out on opportunities too because there were too many people and it freaked me out. Maybe one day we will collectively get over it and be able to take these chances! :)

The part about "Just get in that voice channel" definitely struck where it needed to for me. Now I'm gonna go hop into one I've been looking at later this weekend.

All the people saying "Oh, you're privileged" just don't understand hpw content creation actually works. You're spitting facts

This is very encouraging. I worry a lot about stuff when it comes to collabs bcs I am not sure if I'd mesh well with the person I am collaborating with. It's hard to appear like you're having fun when you're not and anxiety is something I also struggle with. I still remember by 2nd collab with another creator she was so sweet and kind but I was so anxious that you could tell from my voice in the recordings. It was still a very pleasant experience and I had a lot of fun despite literally shaking while trying to play a game😹

i have a fear of messing things up t-t

Really appreciated this! It's given me much to think about ^^ I got one collab in my time as a vtuber, and the difference in volume between her mic and I was so bad, I couldn't even rewatch it XD A wasted opportunity :P

This is the first video of yours that popped up on my feed! It's actually really funny because I was wondering about collaborations a few days ago and your video is pretty informative and funny.

I've finally started to take the leap in asking people to collab! It's so scary, but the worst they can do is say no or just not respond! I finally got one collab down, and I'm planning on another one, so hopefully I can start to feel more confident in asking people to play! Great video, happy birthday, and if you ever want to collab in an FPS game or something, I'd totally be down!

gdi Becky.. 😂😂 Another great video!!

Oh hey it's that Mari handstand I clipped!

i'm a small streamer and i even starter recently. I looove collabs but i don't have lots of ideas, so i can't reach out to people for a collab, only my close vtube friends for playing our usual games together, even someone interviewing me sounds fun!My first collab was a dating show and i was awkward (i mean first time) but there's always room for improvement, right?

I myself like to vtube collaborate to make friends and I've made some rly good ones >w< But I'm pretty good at feeling someone out before I reach out.

Legal mindset collab is an x factor right now proven you have something to bring to the table

It was so nice meeting you at that Filian collab! They were acting like animals but you did great in the vc 😂

Mari: I'm not a furry. Me: The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

There were so many people in Filians most recent game show for Imposter Vtuber, it definitely gets chaotic. Collabs with big or small vtubers can widely vary but you are correct, ghosting happens but you just have to ask

mari really gonna be on her jschlatt arc by playing minecraft, it starts at minecraft, then the ny accent, then the gun and the mutton chops, its so joever

Based thumbnail, even more based 15 minutes of interesting and helpful ranting.

Yeah, i'm after my first collab, with friend whos i knew a few weeks before debut. We both really streassed and we didn't now what to do. But we gonna do next collab with each other. We have so much fun :)

I decided I wanted to collab with someone and so what I did is I went to League of Legends (a multiplayer game that I play) on Twitch, sorted the list of streamers to show the least viewed streamers (cuz I ain't gunna collab with Sinder anytime soon) and then I found a vtuber who I liked and started becoming a member of their community... Haven't recorded myself playing with them in LoL, but did get to have a good time recording hanging out with them in League of Legends... And yeah, I feel like that's a pretty good way of collabing, especially if the streamer you want to collab with has community events... Not going to be like suddenly you're a constant friend with that streamer (unless you impress them maybe, but don't have your hopes up too much) but it might help you at least dip your toes into collabing with someone... Probably a good beginner step IMO... There's definitely a lot of low viewer streamers that aren't gunna be too good for you to collab with, but like if they have 5-20 viewers they might be worth looking into when you have 0 viewers, maybe some people under 5 viewers will be great too depending on if you have the time to browse around there... But yeah, if they speak your language, if you think they're doing some good content despite of not being noticed too much (which I feel like there's many diamonds in the rough here even if there's a lot of poor quality streams too), if they're open to hanging out with the community... Might be worth it to join their discord, follow em on social media, genuinely watch their content and engage in chat, use those stream points to do sound alert shenanigans, etc... That can be your "in" so to speak... You get them talking with you about stuff (again easier when they're small streamers with not much of a chat going on to interact with since in those cases it won't take much to stand out)... Also make sure you're there relatively consistently, you'd probably ideally want someone unlike me who doesn't currently have a stream schedule lol, also my Discord is a bit too dead such that even I don't visit it too much... I'm not saying I'm a particularly great streamer, kind of more of a RU-vid video person until more recently, BUT what I am saying is I did get a couple times so far to collab with someone which would be the goal here... Also it's obviously a bit of a time investment to join someone's community and have noteworthy engagement there with the creator, so you might only be able to put all your eggs in one basket at least at one time depending on the amount of free time you have to do it elsewhere if you wanted to try to collab with multiple people... Also worth noting that when I say 'collab' I'm largely talking about playing with another content creator in a game... Not like, setting each other's VTube avatars on screen necessarily and doing some sort of big project together... Maybe that could happen, but you're just a stranger in their community whose been chatty to them so they'll probably not wanna bother with the effort there... And yeah, doing this kind of collab maybe it won't benefit you, but maybe it will a little bit and if you're just starting out frankly you need all the help you can get plus again it's like an intro to collabing which could be useful especially if you don't really have many non-streamer gaming friends who are also available to do it with such as in my case (I say non-streamer because if they are a streamer then obviously there's potential to collab with your streamer friends, they're your friends and they stream so... Put two and two together there...) But yeah, if you have like no viewers, you'll probably struggle getting the chance to collab with someone who has like 100+ viewers, let alone 1000+... So find someone who is slightly above you, which odds are is going to be someone getting like less than 50 viewers at best probably assuming you're just starting out... If they do games that you enjoy with their community there's your opportunity...

This made me think differently about collabs. I like the idea of planning out the content of the collab because some of us do it anyway in our streams so why don’t we think about it for collabs? It makes it a lot more interesting instead of just playing a game.

Collab in it self to me is scary. I am a pngtuber and still learning new things everyday. I do like to entertain but i also have my quiet moments. I been enjoying your videos a lot and they have been entertaining and helpful to those that want to get into the vtubing/pngtubing space.

for me personally I worry to much mainly cause I have no clue what to even do in a collab, i have like 3 idea that i could even do for collab but i have no clue who i would even ask for them

I've only collabed twice, both on their channels. People joining my channel would need to keep up the high octant energy of insanity I do and I'm aware not everyone is capable of that. Me on their streams, though, my energy gives them something to bounce off of, and sometimes gives them something to react to. It'd be nice to collab on my channel, but I know what my strengths are

also just say ironically ignore the haters and you'll be fine XD

this is strongest aspect of agencies, imho

I used to want to collab with other VTubers, but gradually realized Im way too socially awkward to maintain any conversation and would rather not embarrass myself.

I just got here….. Didn’t know they do that! WELP YOLO *starts messaging Mari* :DD

I would love to collab with people but I do not follow many nor do I wish to make people feel like I am trying to use them I want to be more than a one time stream so It's hard to even find people who would be interested

Why are you ripping into Becky so hard, huh??? D: I like that you made this video though, I agree that smaller content creators need help learning how collabs typically work for business-oriented VTubers (which most large VTubers are). Also, don't think I didn't notice the thumbnail for this video... leave PM-chan alone, she has work to do!

I personally am not after views and just like to talk so ill do reaction content to others cause its like me talking to them xD i love interviewing *having a podcast) people it is the best thing in history for me! Like I dont know how many reactions I have of people reacting to Azur Promilia, Ive asked about every one of those xD I've done an interview/podcast before but I think I scared him off, I dont know lol he kind of was distant after but either way im the last person to care about subscriber count. I ask, They say sure, I talk like mad lol

planning? whats that?

I'd just like to continue learning how to stfu. I rant...a lot.

HI CAN COLLAB WITH YOU HEHE IM NEWBIE I JUST WANNA HAVE FUN

man just do what u feel who cares about what other people think. IM going to the uni using nike and adidas clothes while everyone else is going dressed like they are going to a professional interview. I never used a fucking jean in my life and it wont happen.

Idk, if I was thrown into the thick of it I could survive just because of my work experiences. Working the drive thru and retail is a trial by fire situation, you either figure it out or die. Actually reaching out myself and asking and getting everything ready to go and just staring at the "Go Live" button would be hard, Lol. It's still hard to press the "Go Live" button by myself. I wouldn't think anyone would want to reach out to me if I made stuff so I don't think I'll ever have to worry about that.

idk why ur so sad about being associatied with furries lololol, i'm glad you respect the content side of things. i'm not one to plan a lot of things, i'm a very fly by the seat of my pants person, and i like to interact with my chat when i can even when playing a difficult retrogame

2:48 - I disagree with this claim heavily. I think this is the issue with content creation nowadays. Everybody is taking this so seriously. You're a cartoon character on a screen playing video games. Lighten up lol. Imagine turning down someone who you personally enjoy being around because "Well babe you're just not as serious about content as me" Lmao. I think you can strike a middle ground of collabing with who you want and still making a living as a content creator. 4:40 - This is a better argument. If you just don't feel like the collab would be interesting because your style of content differs then I'd agree that you shouldn't collab. Making the conversation purely about money and clout though just sucks any fun out of being a content creator. News flash, your fav creator didn't plan out collabs like this or focus on money being their only driving factor on their come up (well the good ones at least). They just made content because it was enjoyable. Now youtube and streaming has become this soulless how to get rich quick scheme and it blows. 8:31 - This seems like a no brainer, no? Why wouldnt you vet a creator before collabing with them? I feel like thats just a recipe for disaster. Especially if they're a small one. Any small creators who read this (they wont lol) DON'T COLLAB UNTIL YOU'RE COMFORTABLE STREAMING ALONE. You can't mooch off of another creators energy or clout shark and expect to be successful. Hell actually a better plan is to vc with a creator for an hour before collabing to ensure you guys have an entertaining vibe in the first place. 9:31 - The issue with this (and I do think its true) is that not being friends with the people you collab with is detrimental to the content as a whole. At the VERY LEAST you need to have good chemistry. Imagine gamegrumps if the hosts didn't like each other and were just there for a check. 10:09 - Saying being ghosted is just how content creators are is dystopian as fuck but sadly true. Hence why I think finding a group of creators you're friends with is more important than clout chasing. The egos on some of these creators just isnt worth the trouble lol 12:13 - This is true but never feel like you need to collab with people in the first place. This goes back to my earlier point. Content should be fun not "a career" or "a job". Just have fun and be silly and maybe if you hit record enough times you'll make a decent living off of this. But don't get too in your head about the numbers and meta game of content like mari lol she's just a dork who likes analyzing everything.

I'm an upcoming vtuber (just need another year or two to figure everything out and finalize character designs and stuff), and your videos are really good and helpful! Thanks for making so many informational videos!

Hey Mari, thanks for making this vid. It was really helpful. Could you make a vid about your policies on entering/agreeing a collab stream/vid with someone? From what I've seen of your content thus far, you sound like a great person for me to possibly collab with, in the future, after I've started up my streaming again, & finally get my Vtuber avatar made, & I was wondering if you would be interested. Also, in order to refute/rebut when people try to call you a Furry, you can tell them that you are a Kemonomimi, which is a human with animal ears & tail, which is completely different than a Furry. If the other person/people don't believe you, tell them to go look it up. My main character (in my avatar pic) is also a Kemonomimi, in the category of Nekomimi (cat ears & tail).