[vtuber corporate stuff|cw racism, gaslighting, bad bosses] wow, AkioAIR is imploding before our eyes

so you might have heard that they had a major controversy over openly hiring a minor and making a statement to the effect of "please don't lewd this character, we cast a minor, don't worry her parents approve of her career decisions"

that is currently the least of their worries

oh my god

Athy, whom you might have recognized from her cover of Hoshimachi Suisei's "Ghost" and significantly higher sub count for a while now, quit last week and alleged that the company hasn't been financially supporting their talents, has been paying them late or not at all, and that the CEO, Jason, was threatening legal action when she spoke out against them

and since then, the rest of the team have also been suddenly choosing to graduate and making public statements that line up with this

AA's also made a public statement that sounds pretty victim-blamey

jesus christ

MEW, whom everyone thought might be the last one standing because she was always closest with management, also made a statement and quit, including that they had basically been forced into that position of "director's pet" and that it had cut her off from the group

as well as -- let me edit in cws

she also alleges that Nophi, you know, the teenager they hired? was also told to hide that she speaks Tagalog, because "Southeast Asia isn't marketable and you'll lose engagement"

what the actual fuck

yeahhhhhh

we've also got statements from Athy's character designer stating that they were underpaid and the original Kion (who was recast before debut) talking about being harassed and guilted/threatened into free work when she decided to leave

basically the only person who hasn't spoken up is Fen/Dee, who left the company in January, but she has RTed all her old genmates' exit messages and callout posts in support

basically everyone left or is implied to have left

w e l l

refract and akiowater both

correction, dee has made an unlisted statement where she basically says "i can't say i was fen but i support the others"

🔆💚🔆

Yikes

For context, the sun is Dee's oshi mark and the green heart was Fen's.

yeah the whole situation is a MESS

-- also according to Wawa/Nophi, the official AA statement was written by AI because they didn't actually care enough to apologize

facedesk

officially all of REfract, AkioWATER, and one member of in:serenity (the others we don't know, they've been in debut limbo for months) have quit and the official server got deleted

this casts the old AA fan surveys where they went out of their way to put questions like "Are you aware that our members experience rapid sub growth compared to independent vtubers? Are you aware that you will be monetized faster if you join?" even long before they opened auditions up for their second gen in a new light.......

fuck yes I love to see corpos eating shit

hit da bricks!!! just walk out!!!

this company was a gongshow these girls deserve so much better

update: apparently they also have allegations of one of their managers committing corporate espionage!