William Gibson Not Impressed by Hatsune Miku

William Gibson, the author who kick-started the cyberpunk genre and popularised the notion of a virtual idol, is singularly unimpressed by Hatsune Miku it seems.

What Gibson’s twittering about her “rez” is all about is less than clear, but that he is not enamoured by her is clear enough:

Hatsune Miku doesn’t really rock me. I want higher rez, less anime.

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So Hatsune Miku involves some sort of ongoing crowd-sourced evolution?

His followers also seem less than enthused by the world’s leading virtual idol:

From what I understand she will change as the trends change, the idea being an idoru that can never fall out of favor.

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Yeah, most of her songs are developed by fans, refined by the people at Crypton and then synched to her visuals.

[…]

Think of her as a piano with a personality and a publisher – you get enough composers and some rise to the top.

Fortunately, the world’s media now seems to agree Miku is actually a hologram and not a virtual idol after all…

Japanese observers continued a discrete parallel conversation about his comments in Japanese, wondering just what the hell he was on about:

The great SF writer William Gibson has mentioned Hatsune Miku!

He seems pretty past it. We should explain to him about Miku at an SF con if we get the chance.

By “rez” he means “high rez,” right? He wants her in realistic 3D, not anime style? I’m sure Sega can help with that.

I suppose it would be a bit weird if Gibson praised her; though actually, when I met Crypton’s CEO in San Francisco he was wearing a Neuromancer T-shirt…

Well, it’s less about Miku herself and more about the spontaneous formation of a community of creators and fans around her image.

Also we have to do something about this idea that Miku is a holographic virtual idol which is spreading overseas. I think that coloured Gibson’s comments about her there.

“Doesn’t rock me” – I think we can safely translate that as “みくみくにされなかった”

Hiroyuki Itoh, Crypton’s CEO, chimes in:

So William Gibson tweeted about Hatsune Miku. I read Neuromancer 20 years ago!

When I think about it, it all seemed more futuristic back then. Now the real future is here, we have to be conscious of it. The feeling that the future’s not really living up to the hype kinda sucks.