The year was 2019, and I had just graduated college. Things were looking good… But then, the pandemic struck. At first, it was just vaguely in the news, but as the virus spread, so did the fear. And so we entered lockdown. With it went most of my IRL interactions with people non-digitally, and the start of a very long period of seemingly endless isolation...that is, until I discovered the world of VTubers.