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Middle-aged vlogger who used filter to look young caught in live-stream glitch
- mLuby 7y ago> her fans urged her to show her face and remove her filter but she refused, instead apparently saying: "I can't show my face until I receive gifts worth 100,000 yuan ($11,950). After all, I'm a good-looking host." Followers began to send her donations with the largest reported to be 40,000 yuan ($5,813, £4,780) during the session. > The story has been incredibly popular across Chinese social networks with more than 600 million people reading posts that use a hashtag which translates to "female vlogger experiences bug showing her old lady face" > many live-streamers simply sing karaoke in their bedrooms, or eat snacks for hours on end.
- aiscapehumanity 7y agoGood documentary on this comes from 'Peoples Republic of Desire'. Live-streaming is considerably more mainstream, advanced, and in many cases an actual industry in itself now, outside of the west: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWdg8d18Tfs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWdg8d18Tfs
- sverige 7y agoThere are quite a few making a living from live-streaming in the Anglosphere as well. I'm amazed that men send money. (OK, maybe amazed is the wrong word.) I remember reading a while back about some controversy that some of the female live-streamers were being reported to the IRS for unreported income, with the IRS sending audit notices to them.
- themattress 7y agoI think the a bunch of trolls, probably the incel crowd on 4chan and the like got that going: https://nypost.com/2018/11/27/internet-trolls-are-threatening-to-report-sex-workers-to-the-irs/ https://nypost.com/2018/11/27/internet-trolls-are-threatenin...
- sverige 7y agoThat's it. I forgot they were sexually explicit. Apparently those in TFA are not.
- themattress 7y agoFrom what I recall from various forums and reddit threads it was not just users who generated sexually explicit content, but any streamer judged to be a “thot”.
- wpietri 7y agoOne phenomenon across the animal kingdom is the nuptial gift, where giving expensive resources is used to prove fitness for mating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuptial_gift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuptial_gift I first came across the concept in the delightful book "Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation", which covers the evolutionary biology of reproduction in the form of an advice column with letters from birds, insects, etc: https://www.amazon.com/Dr-Tatianas-Sex-Advice-Creation/dp/0805063315/ https://www.amazon.com/Dr-Tatianas-Sex-Advice-Creation/dp/08...
- INTPenis 7y agoI want an interview with someone who is willing to donate over a thousand dollars to a person they're watching talk on a webcam.
- mattnewton 7y agoIt is crazy, they aren’t even promising heaven or sex. I guess they must get a sense of companionship?
- crocbuzz 7y agoGo on some of the most popular Twitch.tv channels, you'll see lots of that happening. Too many to count on two hands. It's unbelievable and quite sad.
- Diederich 7y ago> quite sad. I wonder if you can expand on that.
- stereographic 7y agoI think the idea is the trope that people who donate "thousands of dollars" to a random person on twitch are probably lonely. I'm not into the streaming community much though, but that would be my assumption of what they meant
- read_if_gay_ 7y agoIt’s not sad if you can afford it and enjoy the content created by the streamer. I can see why one might call it sad though if you are donating significant amounts of money relative to your spending capacities to someone that you wouldn’t donate to if they looked differently.
- munk-a 7y agoI cannot conceive of how being able to view someone carries an equal value for a person as a week or two in Cancun chilling - or how they can spend money that easily that took them weeks of their life to earn through labour[1]. [1] There's a segment of the population that I'm ignoring those that are either trust fund babies or useless economic leeches, when those people blow 100k on a car that they immediate crash I just shrug - but I know a lot of the people following these cams are actually working people (probably white collar, but still actually working for a living).
- mruts 7y agoI wasn't aware technology had progressed so far that retail consumers have access to this kind of software for live video. I would be very interested in what kinds of software these people are using.
- probablybroken 7y agoYes... The screen shot in the article looks a lot more like the 'filter' in use is actually another actress. Though I'd love to be proven wrong.
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- mkagenius 7y agoThere is a video linked in the article. And I highly doubt one can produce such realistic hand movements in real-time . I mean why would Disney spend years in making a movie, then? Edit: Okay, I think only lips are copied from real person to a pre-recorded footage of some celebrity. That is a easier problem than what I thought what was going on.
- SolaceQuantum 7y agoEveryone is presenting false versions of themselves, especially the people who present themselves as a true version of themselves. I'm admittedly quite sadenned by the continued commodification of female appearances in this manner. I am curious if male vlogging has similar tricks to get more $$$.
- hestipod 7y agoI don't agree with this. At least except not in the most pedantic philosophical sense. My role models were people who acted the same when they didn't know anyone was looking, or there was no reward. They didn't put on fake personas or dramatically code switch. They didn't primp and accessorize to meet some vain expectation. They were of course respectful of others expectations and wouldn't go to a funeral in pajamas or anything selfishly ridiculous, but they were genuine, empathetic, kind....honest. I try to emulate them the best I can. Any human failings in that trying is not at all the same thing as the fraud that this article and so many perpetrate to gain something.
- SolaceQuantum 7y agoThe examples you provide are more exaggerated than I am saying. Even your greatest role models have probably genuinely thought harm to others in flashes of anger, done things to people that they later regret, have their moments of genuine cruelty to other. But interacting with them doesn't mean you get a list of all their sins and insecurities at the time, and neither are you obligated to them, which makes them seem untarnished by all their bad things they done, thought, believed, so on and so forth. And they won't tell you either, not until you get to really know them.
- hestipod 7y agoAs I said, the normal human failings/thoughts/emotions are not the same thing as this articles premise. I also do not accept that everyone has moments of cruelty. Cruel thoughts are not the same thing. We all think things and choosing how we react is the difference. I feel that trying to claim even the best people are secretly hiding evils is an attempt to feel better about one's own feelings or actions. I am confident in the examples I look up to be sure I "know" their true natures.
- bitwize 7y agoReminds me of the time a "cute anime girl" streamer had a glitch that exposed him as a fairly typical otaku hikikomori using motion capture software to puppet the character (and presumably some sort of voice synthesizer to provide the dialogue).
- namanyayg 7y agoDo you have a link? I'm amazed by the fake video generation we have now, I wonder when we'll start seeing it used for spam and (mal)advertising.
- Mirioron 7y agoThis one. You can search for the articles when searching for "Nora Cat". https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3iwL9Yz8LcKkJsnLPevOTQ/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3iwL9Yz8LcKkJsnLPevOTQ/vid...
- echelon 7y agoI want to live in a world where everyone is confident in themselves and doesn't care what others think about superficial details outside of character. In the far-far future that may never come, I imagine people exist in a virtual continuum and can change all aspects of their appearance such that they never feel slighted by their perceived place in a fitness gradient they cannot change. Maybe technology is helping us get there. Or maybe it's showing the deep facets of our evolutionary makeup and our learned societal pressures, and we're incapable of doing anything but pay it lip service. Being human animals kind of sucks, because intellectually we strive for more. But we're tied to these basal frames.
- hestipod 7y agoOn casting Sir Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard: Reporter: "Surely by the 24th century, they would have found a cure for male pattern baldness." Rodenberry: "No, by the 24th century, no one will care." I doubt even a few hundred years will wash out vanity and the worst parts of us, but here's to hoping.
- maxerickson 7y agoI have lots of gray hair before 40 and don't even think of dyeing it. Of course, this is not so different than vanity on my part, as I'd be mortified if I was dyeing it and someone found out...
- cr0sh 7y agoI have a brother-in-law who's been dyeing his hair, and wears a toupee (a very poorly fitting one) - for whenever he's at some kind of formal function or whatnot. This is a guy who drives dump trucks and excavators, and could crush you with one hand - I swear to $DEITY. He's not a bad guy - actually a very nice man. But if you got on his bad side, watch out. I once saw him lift a full large wheeled garbage bin up and over his head and shake it out like it was nothing - like it was kitchen garbage can. Not someone to mess with. He normally - in everyday life - doesn't care what he looks like, smells like, etc - he'll go right into a grocery store covered in oil and grease from working on his backhoe in the middle of summer, buy a soda and walk out, and he'll smile and wave, call ya "hon" and "boss" - pet the dog on the way out, ya know. But clean him up and put him in a suit - all of a sudden he's embarrassed that his hair is thin and gray, etc. I've told him that he should shave himself bald, because he's got that classic "Mr. Clean" head shape that would make it look good. Few people can rock bald, but he won't do it. Instead, he just puts a ball cap on if he's out in the sun, and ignores it I guess.
- cwkoss 7y agoThis is just a form of digital makeup. I predict that using a young attractive avatar will become the social norm and this sort of thing will be entirely unobjectionable within a decade.
- devoply 7y agoYeah pretty much. And no one should be against this. This is allowing people to be who they want to be instead of being limited by who they are... It is no different than someone getting plastic surgery to change their appearance... which I guess some people still despise but I don't see it any differently from someone who is transgender and wants to get an operation and drugs to make them more like their chosen gender.
- flagfeedingusa1 7y agoWhy can't people just learn to be happy with who they are? Perhaps the truly toxic individuals are the ones telling everyone they should indeed undergo hormone replacement therapy, invasive surgeries and other life changing decisions. Maybe people need to actually accept who they are and by extension what they look like to actually find inner peace, and chopping off your genitals may not be the way to do that.
- sdegutis 7y ago"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." The words vanity and vain come from the Latin word for empty, or without substance or value. When we alter our appearance, it's because we put value or merit in something that inherently has no merit. We all want a reason to hold our head up high. Some look for it in athletics, others in academia, others in financial success. This woman looked for it by faking her physical appearance. But the best reason is something we can't merit: we are made in the image and likeness of God. We are all little images of God, and if we truly understand that we have inherent dignity, then nobody can take that from us, no matter how poor or ugly or uneducated we are. And then we won't feel the need to put ourselves high up. And we won't feel the need to put others below us. We'll want others to know their own dignity, so they might stand tall with us!
- omarhaneef 7y agoThis should send a clear message to all those people trying to look younger: use makeup.
- CoolGuySteve 7y agoYeah, here's a great makeup tip: draw a 3d barcode or marker on your face so that the tracking doesn't fail as easily.
- duxup 7y agoI have trouble believing the fans didn't know at some point. The article implies they didn't, but also isn't specific. Perhaps they knew but and the mystery was part of the show? I haven't seen any software generally available that wouldn't be somewhat obvious that it is in use.
- bufferoverflow 7y agoI'm a guy and I have no idea why some guys throw ridiculous money at good looking girls online. You have no chance of meeting them, let alone anything else. If anything, throw money at not so good looking people, their lives are harder on average.
- adventured 7y agoPay-for-attention is what's occurring there, in most cases. They're attempting to buy attention from the woman in question. In a context of competition, where there are many men trying to talk to one woman, spending money is a means of stepping above the crowd that is trying to get her attention. It mirrors what goes on in the physical world. Men spend extraordinary sums of money to attract/buy the attention of women, using status objects or spending lavishly. And of course the perpetual debate between whether this is a normal biological behavior for signaling purposes, or whether it's mostly society induced and isn't necessary or useful.
- dx87 7y agoIt's the same reason people blow tons of money at strip clubs. They want someone to like them, they don't care if the feelings are fake. Some of the popular streamers also do fan meetups for their biggest donators, where they'll go on a single "date" with them.
- redthrow 7y agoThere are people who only tip good money in restaurants when the waitor is not so good looking, to counter balance this tendency for many people. Looks should not matter when it comes to serving food (although they seem to do in reality). When the product/service is based on people's good looks (e.g. models in adverts, Hollywood movies), the story would be different. The online streamers probably belong to this category to some extent, because people do like looking at beautiful people.
- robocat 7y agoThat's like asking why do people watch porn when they won't "meet" the pornstar. I can totally get why someone would pay for interactive porn (although I personally spend my money on my own (wasteful) interests).
- edgarvaldes 7y agoWhen you reward people for their physical appearance (and certain standards of beauty), it is no surprise that they take advantage of technology to look as expected by the public.
- devoply 7y agoTo look at it another way, some people have a natural advantage in life that they did not earn. This helps even that playing field.
- dlivingston 7y agoHogwash. Life is full of inequalities; the very nature of evolution is inequality. Visit Eastasia or Eurasia if you want an equal outcome civilization.
- ben509 7y agoBut they're expending their own resources to improve their outcome, much as you might pay for braces to straighten your teeth.
- danso 7y agoWow, this shows how out of touch I am with social media and technology. I know that Apple's 3d-camera phones enable chat via Animoji, but that applies a cartoon image across your face. I didn't realize reality-enhancement filters (e.g. face thinners) were good enough to work in real-time? I'm confused because the links in the article just show the woman's real face [0], and not footage of when the filter was actually working. I guess I expected to see the glitching in real-time, like the "Mission Impossible" hallway scene [1] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8m4jYaALIA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8m4jYaALIA [1] https://youtu.be/qtA0JS1lBaY?t=359 https://youtu.be/qtA0JS1lBaY?t=359
- notimetorelax 7y agoReading the article it appears that everyone knew that this was a filter. She asked for 100k donation to reveal her face, but no one donated this much yet.
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- chipperyman573 7y agoThe tech is pretty grown up at this point... If you open up snapchat and hold down on your face while the selfie camera is active, a lot of masks will show up that change your face in real-time. One of these swaps your gender (and does a pretty good job of it to be honest). And this is just running on a phone (including android where there's no AI chip like in iphones), I'm sure with a computer you can do much better!
- danso 7y agoOk, I found an example (I don't have snapchat installed) of one of these filters working on video (not sure if it would work for live streaming): https://www.cnet.com/how-to/want-to-try-that-gender-face-swap-thing-everyones-doing-heres-how/ https://www.cnet.com/how-to/want-to-try-that-gender-face-swa... I guess it looks...obviously like a filter, with particular distortion around the hair? In the BBC story's lede image [0], which purports to be two photos of the same vlogger, with and without the filter, her "filtered" face is substantially slimmed, yet the hair near the software-slimmed contours of the face looks, not fake at all? [0] https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/123E0/production/_108102747_picofwoman.jpg https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/123E0/production...
- lol_jono 7y agoI'm impressed by how far technology has become to the point that she could do this.
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- ergothus 7y agoRight?! I think there's lots of honest debate to be had about how superficial we are, but honestly, my reaction to this is "That worked? wow!" This is exactly why I have problems with all the "AI / self-driving cars / CRISPR / etc" articles that correctly point out how long we've spent with revolution "just around the corner"....that corner might be far away, or it might be close and there's every reason to be skeptical of any given claim. But when it happens, it WILL be dramatically rapid, and poo-pooing the idea of thinking about it in advance just leads us to a society that was warned long ago of a coming adjustments yet is always somehow surprised.
- certmd 7y agoI think a reading of the relevant passage from David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest" (from 1996) re: video conversations is appropriate here. http://declineofscarcity.com/?page_id=2527 http://declineofscarcity.com/?page_id=2527
- malandrew 7y agoI was actually looking through the comments to see if someone would reference DFW videophony.
- justinator 7y agoSame - exactly where my brain went.
- pythonbase 7y ago"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." - Oscar Wilde
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- apo 7y agoThe article links to this video of the incident: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8m4jYaALIA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8m4jYaALIA Without video of the filter in action, I'm skeptical of the claim. It seems plausible that the person on the left is using a filter of some kind.
- tdxcbkifxx 7y agoWhy does it matter if a cam girl is not who she presents herself as?
- asadkn 7y agoThere's bias for good looks. And cosmetic/health industry spends billions of dollars on marketing to re-enforce and further strengthen the bias. So is it any surprise people would want to game it to get a better chance of success.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y agoI know this is tangential to the whole thing, but this is a cool feature of the Chinese language: >The story has been incredibly popular across Chinese social networks with more than 600 million people reading posts that use a hashtag which translates to "female vlogger experiences bug showing her old lady face" and more than 50,000 using the hashtag itself. In english, you're never going to get a twitter trend of #FemaleVloggerExperiencesBugShowingHerOldLadyFace. Does anyone know of research looking at how more compact languages influence trending? It seems neat.
- newen 7y agoGood chance it's actually just 6 to 7 syllables long. So, not just writing but compact speech too.
- kremonte 7y agoImportant to note, however, that spoken language information density (per syllable) and syllabic rate are strongly inversely correlated [1]; languages such as Mandarin with lots of information contained in each syllable tend to be spoken slower than languages like Spanish, which uses many more syllables to convey the same amount of information, but in a similar amount of time. So, the compactness really is more just on the writing side. [1] "A cross-language perspective on speech information rate" https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/16e6/43a9e39674c58acd7cdf56c0ff4478492f63.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/16e6/43a9e39674c58acd7cdf56...
- yorwba 7y agoIt's #女主播直播出bug秒变大妈脸# [1]. 12 syllables. I can get an English translation down to the same syllable count: #StreamingBugTurnsVloggerGirlIntoOldWoman It obviously still takes up more horizontal space; to fix that you'd need to use a font that squeezes about 3 Latin letters into the same space as one Chinese character. However, the gap in information density isn't actually that large, because Chinese usually requires slightly larger fonts to achieve the same legibility. It's maybe also interesting to note that hashtags are delimited by # on both ends, because there are no spaces between words you could use to find the end. [1] https://m.weibo.cn/search?containerid=231522type%3D1%26t%3D10%26q%3D%23%E5%A5%B3%E4%B8%BB%E6%92%AD%E7%9B%B4%E6%92%AD%E5%87%BAbug%E7%A7%92%E5%8F%98%E5%A4%A7%E5%A6%88%E8%84%B8%23 https://m.weibo.cn/search?containerid=231522type%3D1%26t%3D1...
- aaron695 7y agoThis is downright fake news bullshit. This tech doesn't exist. Why does HN eat this up. No one here uses tech? The photo is two actresses. Does BBC fact check at all, or is it all bullshit. Video on how it is possible in an artificial way. Which I suspect kicked this fake story off, with a little acting on the Chinese end. https://youtu.be/kcA1nebGzgg https://youtu.be/kcA1nebGzgg
- nabla9 7y agoAnd why not. Getting plastic surgery is also used to make people look good and it has become a practical necessity for any aging female performer. Filter is cheaper.
- colpabar 7y agoBut isn't this just reinforcing that necessity?
- njharman 7y agoThis sounds like the setup for a Black Mirror episode.
- rvz 7y agoOh dear, these filters are now so sophisticated and realistic, that they are able to distort reality and can fool anybody. It is getting easier to fake anything these days, and I can only see this being common place in the society dependent on social media being a source of news online. The importance of the 'Don't believe everything on the internet' advice is becoming increasingly important these days, as there are many Wizards of Oz out there hiding behind the computer screen and Instagram/Snapchat filters.
- rundigen12 7y agoAll I see is a filtered woman on the left and a different unfiltered woman on the right, the whole time. At what time does the glitch occur?
- SlowRobotAhead 7y agoIf you’re talking about the YouTube video, I don’t think they captured the glitch from A to B, just the unfiltered capture.
- g9yuayon 7y agoIt's interesting BBC noticed so called four great sorceries of Asia (亚洲四大邪术). Applying digital makeup to someone to the point that his or her mama couldn't recognize the person is certainly one of them.