One of the coolest things I’ve ever seen in a baseball game happened on July 5.

With no disrespect intended, this is not about Joey Loperfido’s juggling home run robbery, nor does it concern anything that occurred during the Diamondbacks-Padres dogfight, and none of the seven home runs the Pirates hit against the Cardinals have to do with what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about Gawr Gura, Usada Peko and Hoshimachi Suisei exclaiming “It’s time for Dodger baseball!” before a 50,000-person crowd in Los Angeles.

As a lifelong Dodger fan, and as a long time Hololive fan, this is so surreal #HololiveDodgers pic.twitter.com/L6l43ONZys

— Jacob (@sonofaskywalker) July 6, 2024

These three weren’t exactly VIPs because VIP stands for “very important person(s).”  Gura, Peko and Suisei are not actually people, they’re “vtubers,” short for “virtual YouTuber.”  They don’t operate exclusively on YouTube but the definition remains the same—they’re content creators who use an anime avatar in lieu of a live person, usually with motion capture emulating their facial expressions and body movements.  It’s a live, animated mask or filter, so to speak.  If you’re familiar with Hatsune Miku, it’s kind of like that but with much more direct human input.

It’s a form of online persona that exploded in popularity around the late 2010’s with Kizuna AI to the point where companies, like Cover Corporation, developed talent agencies dedicated to vtuber content.  That’s what Hololive Production is.  Even though vtuber operations were based in Japan and almost all of them exclusively spoke Japanese, their appeal slowly bled into the rest of the world.  There was something mystifying about seeing a fictional anime character engage with a live audience like a real person.  They’d play real video games, sing popular songs and even exhibit crude, adult behavior.  Streams would be translated to dismantle the language barrier, with notable moments being reuploaded as shorter fragments, or “clips”.  The slowly increasing worldwide appeal ultimately lead to said companies and agencies committing to full-time English-speaking vtubers.

Some years later, they’re now proudly displayed within Dodger Stadium, home of (arguably) the most popular team in a sport played and watched by hundreds of millions.  A team that symbolizes the 23rd most populated city in the world and serves as one of its largest hubs of entertainment from many sources.  “Hololive Night” at Dodger Stadium featured photoshoots where fans could take pictures alongside cardboard stands of Gura, Pekora and Suisei, three of Hololive’s most popular and influential vtubers, adorned in Dodgers uniforms.  Exclusive merchandise featuring the Dodgers and Hololive brands together was sold, while Gura and Pekora would take turns leading crowd cheers throughout the game.  Post-game entertainment came in the form of a Hololive-themed drone show set to original songs by Hoshimachi Suisei.

It may have been the most successful theme night in baseball history.

Some attendees were in full cosplay—costumes depicting Hololive’s characters.  On social media, #hololiveDodgers was flooded with thousands of enthusiastic posts and a few understandably confused reactions.  And that exclusive merchandise booth?  Fans lined up around the entire stadium for it.  Some reported waiting times over six hours—far longer than the game itself, which they would never get to see.  In that sense, it feels like a failure—Hololive completely underestimated how passionate their own fans are.

🤯 hololive x Dodger merch line 💀 ⚾ #hololiveDodgers #hololive #ホロライブ pic.twitter.com/Hrx8PfxT2k

— hwikky (YouTube) (@hwikkyofficial) July 6, 2024

It helps that this event took place on the weekend of Anime Expo.  Every year around the Fourth of July, Los Angeles holds the largest anime convention in the world.  No doubt some of the 300,000 visiting for AX made this special Dodgers game part of their trip.  Or everyone just really wanted to wish the sport’s most popular player a very happy birthday.

Really, I think such enthusiasm for the event stems from a deeper appreciation—just the fact that it happened at all feels special.  Anime, and by extension vtubers, has long been a highly stigmatized hobby in the general world.  Anime for a lot of people around me, no matter what age I am, has always been seen as… I dunno.  Weird.  Like if you tell someone you watch a lot of anime and name things beyond Cowboy Bebop or a Miyazaki movie, they get real quiet and probably try to change the subject.

I certainly didn’t grow up in an anime-accepting world.  I mean, sure, we all watched Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! but those weren’t “anime” anime.  Sorry if that comes off as gatekeeping, but 4Kids infamously localized these shows so they wouldn’t come off so… foreign.  “Real” anime was hard to come by and harder to find was anyone else who even knew of its existence.  There weren’t any kids in my class that got hype for Goku defeating Frieza.  No one cared who won the Dark Tournament.  My parents refused to pronounce “Inuyasha” correctly.

Speaking of things considered weird, another gathering of strange people occurred on the same weekend in Pittsburgh.  Anthrocon, a furry convention (furries being an amicable term used to describe people who dress up as animals), occupied the downtown area close to the Pirates.  The reason why anybody knows or cares about this is because Andrew McCutchen, one of the most storied and respected players in the game, would acknowledge their existence on social media.  It’s gotten to the point where not only has extensive discussion taken place about it, but Cutch has leaned into the meme.

F
U
R
R
I
E
S

— Andrew McCutchen (@TheCUTCH22) July 4, 2024

And they love him for that.

🚨Furry in a Cutch jersey🚨 pic.twitter.com/M83nPxHVcX

— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) July 4, 2024

Cutch didn’t really do anything.  He just noted their presence in his life and… moved along with his day.  At the end of the tail, that’s all these people want.  I think that’s what any person wants: to freely express themselves without having to feel judged or unwelcome.  It doesn’t require any bending over backwards from any party; mere disinterest can do just fine.  You’re a furry?  That’s neat.  So, how’s your day going?

I get it—these people are weird.  Dressing in a full-body suit of a cerulean wolf is weird.  Watching moving drawings with colossal, sparkling eyes as they speak another language is weird.  And that just kind of scratches the surface.  There’s a reason why hobbyists of this sort are much more prevalent on the Internet than in reality, because they’ve become synonymous with degeneracy.  I could just drop official images of some of Hololive’s character designs here and put all advertising on this website at severe risk.  The fans are degenerates, and often the medium plays into that.

It’s true.  Anime and vtuber fans are weird degenerates commonly rejected and looked down upon by society.  I know this ‘cause I’m one of them.  These are my people.  I get them.

That said, something bothers me a little bit about this.  When I dig into the baseball community—and I’m just speaking very generally, not singling out any particular place or platform—I see so many comments about players’ butts.  When someone hits a home run, they call it a “dong.”  Someone doing something cool on the field may be a “big pp move,” to paraphrase.  Just the other day, a clip of Shohei Ohtani, the most popular baseball player on Earth, went viral because it looked like he was making a lewd gesture after stealing a base.  And seemingly every stadium has an event where a few people dress up as hot dogs and run down the field like clumsy, bumbling idiots.

Shohei Ohtani with the wildest celebration of the season pic.twitter.com/oystbanHfw

— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) July 10, 2024

I’m sure baseball fans will read that and go “Yeah, so?” as if I’m upset by any of these things.  I’m not.  I think all of that is hilarious.  Just as funny as it is to see a hot dog racer eat dirt, it’s funny to watch an anime girl scream and break a controller over a death in Elden Ring.  These things are weird, charming and beautiful and make the world a better place.  if everything was normal and straight-faced, well, that just wouldn’t be very fun.

It’s not that any of these things are particularly more weird than others.  It’s just a matter of how accustomed to something’s weirdness you are.  Other countries look at baseball and find it to be baffling, appalling, strange.  After all, baseball is a mutated form of an English sport named after a bug.  Americans also took football and started playing it with their hands.  Something clearly got lost in translation there, but we kept it because no one said everything has to make perfect sense.  A little chaos here and there is nice, y’know?

What I want is for weirdness to encompass everything and turn into normalcy.  That’s why Hololive Night was so cool and exciting.  It brought the weirdos into the realm of normies, and what happened as a result?  Everyone had a great time.  The weirdos either got their fun, quirky anime-themed entertainment or politely stood in line for nine years to buy a cool shirt, and the baseball fans who probably couldn’t care less about any of that got to see the guy who punched Chris Rock hit three home runs.

Because, at the end of the day, everyone’s for a unified reason: to see a baseball game.  Our shared interest brings us together regardless of what other things we’ve got going on.  Yeah, I can talk your ear off on why a kooky girl saying “tuturu” is my favorite fictional character of all time.  I know it’s weird that I have a figure of her.  But let me ask you this: is it more or less weird to put it alongside figures of actual people?  I’ll give you the xwOBAs of everyone in the Royals’ starting lineup if it’ll make you feel better.

Bring the weirdos in, is what I say.  You’ll be surprised by how many seemingly normal people exist in these seemingly weird communities and how much they have in common with you.  And think of how many new fans your team will get!  Look, I think Taylor Swift is the most overrated, overplayed and over-celebrated artist on the planet.  But when I think of how many couples got to bond over football last season, because some girlfriends suddenly took great interest in the sport they never wanted to be in the same room as… I think that’s beautiful.  We need more of that, because more people enjoying something means more enjoyment overall.

Yeah, I get it—there are lots of crazy, stinky people out there that you don’t want from some of these communities.  I’m not condoning old, unwashed dudes showing up to baseball games in ahegao hoodies (if you don’t know what that is, don’t worry about it. just don’t.) with their arm(s) wrapped around a Kana Arima body pillow.  I’m sure that’s the lovely image of an “anime fan” some of you have.  You know what else we don’t need?  Dudes yelling at the guy on the on-deck circle because he didn’t hit a home run in his last at bat and now they’ve lost $50.  Nor do we need drunk boomers screaming at visiting fans for “wearing the wrong jersey” or grown men pushing children aside to catch a home run

See?  We’re not so different, are we?  Sure, there are some really, really annoying and lame people in our communities that probably shouldn’t be in public.  On the other hand, the vast, vast majority of people in our communities are pretty cool.  Let’s cherish that and bring them closer together.  The Defending World Champion Texas Rangers just announced a My Hero Academia theme night later on this season.  That’s what I’m talking about.  Let’s hear it for more weird, nerdy theme nights at baseball games!  Imagine if the Pirates fully leaned into the memes and did a furry night.  If you ignore the logistics of encouraging others to wear heavy full-body suits in July, this would be a hit.

That’s gonna be the newest market inefficiency: weird theme games at the ballpark.  The Dodgers are geniuses, I want Hololive Night at every ballpark and I want more weird things to happen.  Because I know you want that too.  Because you’re weird.  Nice to meet you.  I’m weird.  Here’s a clip of a dog wearing sunglasses being hand-fed a hot dog.

Baseball is the best sport and it’s not even close pic.twitter.com/l1kdgXTNLq

— Roy Drones Jr (@chiweethedog) July 10, 2024