This Vtuber Ruined Her Career Over Plushies

There have been so many controversies in the vtuber, streaming, and content creation communities that it has become common to hear something crazy happening every month.

However, today I want to discuss a specific case that shows what can happen when one party doesn’t fully understand how some things work in the vtuber space.

I’m talking about the controversy that happened between a vtuber called Gumpai and a toymaker named Kusa.

Let’s talk about that.

Some context

In the vtuber space, merchandise demand is huge and only keeps getting bigger as the industry grows.

However, for it to be truly profitable you need to be a big vtuber.

This is because there are various hands involved in merch production the revenue gets split many times before it reaches the vtuber which means that to make a substantial revenue you depend on big sale numbers.

That’s why merch is mostly used as a way to give back to your community and thank your supporters, and it tends to only be available for a limited amount of time.

This leaves a gap for people who want to get merch from their favorite vtubers but couldn’t get it before the time limit.

A gap that is filled by fan merch created by dedicated fans or independent artists.

But what about copyright?

That is not usually a problem in the vtuber space, some of the biggest agencies in the industry will even encourage you to make fan merch under the condition that you don’t mass produce it and that you don’t claim that you own the IP.

We accept this because for most of us getting fan merch means that we have grown big enough for someone to handmade something our communities can take to their homes.

Plus it is also free advertisement since these artists would share these products on their socials often tagging the vtuber in question.

Most importantly, it is very cool to see the kinds of stuff some people make.

It can be:

• Art posters
• Postcards
• Stickers
• Keychains
• Plushies
• Toys
• Pins

Just to name a few.

For example, the illustrator SPOON recently went to an anime convention to sell vtuber fan merch of various Hololive, Vshojo, and Phase Connect talents.

He also often sells vtuber charms in a cute chibi art style.

He is just one of many who do this and we appreciate it when someone creates them…or at least most of us do as you will soon come to find out.

Now you know the context of how the vtuber space typically handles fan merch, so let’s go back to the case of today.

Back to the case

As previously mentioned there are 2 people involved in this case — Gumpai and Kusa.

Kusa is a Vietnamese toymaker who makes handmade custom-order plushies.

She was commissioned by a Gumpai fan to make a plushie and had some leftovers after it, so instead of throwing them away, she went to Gumpai’s Discord server to ask if anyone would be interested in receiving one.

Gumpai thought that Kusa was a scammer and that she was taking advantage of her by selling “Temu-tier” plushies made with her character model while she wasn’t making any money from it and decided to blast her online for that.

While I understand not wanting someone promoting stuff in her Discord, calling out Kusa was the wrong move as Kusa is well-known in the vtuber community and had made stuff for some of the biggest vtubers out there.

Many of which came out in her defense by the way.

Kusa also explained her side and proved that she was not a scammer and shared the design the Gumpai fan commissioned.

As bad as this situation was for Gumpai, she could have reduced the damage to her brand if she had just apologized for her mistake.

However, she instead decided to double down on her claims and try to play the victim while saying some unhinged things that further damaged her reputation.

Not only that, but she exposed herself as being angry because Kusa didn’t send her some of the plushies for free which only made her look entitled and greedy.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the Twitter community notes kept disproving all of her claims every time.

This case was explained in more detail in this video:

After this whole ordeal, Gumpai pretty much ruined her chances of growing a fruitful career as a vtuber because now people will remember her as that one vtuber who complained about not getting free stuff.

This is ironic given that her Throne had over 300 gifts her community had donated to her at the time this happened.

The craziest part about this whole case is that Gumpai could have resolved it privately if she had just contacted Kusa via Twitter DMs and asked her to not promote her plushies in her Discord, but since she decided to make this whole situation public, things went the way they did.

I suppose this also teaches that public call-outs are not always the best course of action.

UPDATE:

Something new has come out in regards to this same case that resulted in the real end of Gumpai in the vtuber community.

It turns out that Gumpai was doing a specific type of content called “girlfriend/boyfriend experience”. As the name implies, this content focuses on giving the viewers the feeling that they are in a relationship with the creator.

I will one day make a dedicated post about this topic as I do have a few things to say about it.

However, for now, all you need to know is that this tends to create parasocial viewers who are convinced that they are in a real relationship.

Gumpai was doing this type of content to an extreme that I haven’t seen others do, to the point that she herself was saying that she was in a real relationship with her viewers.

However, it turned out that she was in a real relationship with someone and was using her community of parasocial “boyfriends” to buy things for him.

This video covers everything in more detail:

As you would expect, they turned on her and when it happened she immediately deleted all of her social media accounts. This is officially the end of Gumpai as a vtuber. She might reappear in the future under another persona, but I doubt it.

Final Thoughts

The lack of understanding about how things work within the vtuber industry can be the cause of controversies when not handled carefully.

In this case, Gumplai failed to understand how fan merch is perceived by vtubers and their fans and damaged her reputation as a result and now most in the community regard her as entitled and greedy.

On the bright side, this whole case helped get more eyes on Kusa and her craft which means more commissions for her.

If you are an artist, this might even be an opportunity for you since fan merch will never be seen as a bad thing by vtubers for as long as you don’t mass-produce it or claim ownership of the IPs so you can build a business around it.

Just be careful of the vtuber from whom you are making fan merch.

In regards to Gumpai, I don’t know man. I usually try to end on a positive note, but this girl really messed up.

So..yeah…I guess that’s it.

See you next time!