Editor’s Note: This article is of an adult nature. Citations in this article may include adult content. Reader discretion is advised.

Projekt Melody is the world’s first virtual anime camgirl, and her popularity has exploded.

While “virtual YouTubers” have taken off with the likes of Kizuna Ai (a voice actor or actress utilizing motion tracking technology to give a performance of a character- usually an anime character), it seems we may be seeing the first virtual camgirl.

Projekt Melody first uploaded videos to YouTube on January 2020, but on Friday 7th gave her first “performance” on Chaturbate, an adult website where models perform erotic acts for donations.

Since then her popularity soared, with claims of her streams taking the top spot on the website. Some other “performers” on the website took issue with it, claiming the character’s design looked too young, and even outright admission they would struggle to compete.

Other social media users made light of the situation, siding with “Melody” and teasing those who complained that they were jealous [1, 2, 3, 4].

Along with the memetic spread thanks to the outrage, the novelty, and possibly the unsubstantiated claims of the rising popularity of hentai may be contributing factors to Melody’s rise to popularity. Vice reports that the official Twitter account for the character rose to 200,000 followers after her first stream.

Cam model Lennox May told Vice that she thought something like Melody belonged on a designated platform for avatars.

“Overall from a scientific and technology perspective I think that ProjektMelody is genius, but that it needs to be presented to the world in a way that is still fair to everyone else. […] There are 1000’s of models who try all day spending hours more than the average work week to get to the front page of a cam site. Some never do.”

May did concede that Melody’s actress could be safer than her real life counterparts. “There’s a huge gap in vulnerability, and what that means emotionally for [human] models versus Melody is also quite vast,” May explains.

“A model has to keep up appearances when they have trolls in their room, or when put in an awkward situation with a customer who is being rude or asking for things that we do not feel comfortable doing.”

Vice reporters reached out to the Melody Twitter account, with Melody replying in-character, stating “she” had gone through all the usual ID checks that Chaturbate use for their models, and had their approval to conduct the live streams.

The character also claimed she was an AI that had been infected with porn pop-up ads. “Once corrupted, I became obsessed with the lewd side on the internet.” 

Melody also discussed the hate she had been getting from other models, and how focusing on how much risk a model is willing to take would be a dangerous precedent.

“It makes me sad that [other models] don’t want me there. I don’t agree with the argument that because I’m safer, and less likely to have stalkers, that I shouldn’t be allowed to stream… I don’t think camming is defined by the risk models take in their personal lives, I think it’s defined by the content that they produce, and the community they build around themselves. I think it’s a dangerous precedent to tell future cam models that you are somehow less deserving of being a model, unless you’re putting yourself at risk.”

Image: Projekt Melody Twitter.