AI virtual characters are mushrooming everywhere, but far more people still cannot forget her who has accompanied them for 14 years.

In mid-to-late July, the weather in Beijing is volatile, alternating between rain and sweltering heat.

Even so, the National Indoor Stadium was fully packed that night, with countless fans coming to watch the first performance of Luo Tianyi's 2026 National Tour Concert themed "Infinite Resonance · Pure Blue Phantom Melody".

Scene of Luo Tianyi's 2026 National Tour Concert

When we arrived, crowds of people gathered outside the stadium. Those holding hand banners, glow sticks and Luo Tianyi character peripherals were not only college students, but also parents leading their children, middle-aged aunts traveling in groups, two little girls in Hanfu with their mothers following beside them.

Who is the real Luo Tianyi fan in the family? Judging from the outfits and the tunes they hum, the mother standing next to us is obviously more of a seasoned fan than her child. In fact, while most people still regard Luo Tianyi as a two-dimensional symbol exclusive to the post-95s and post-00s generations, she has long broken through her original niche circle and is accepted and loved by people of all ages in different ways.

What is more worth recording than the concert scene is a series of quiet moves made by Luo Tianyi's official operator Vsinger in the past two years behind this concert. It launched the theme song "Singing the Mountain" for the intangible cultural heritage instrument Tianqin in collaboration with Guangxi cultural and tourism authorities, held offline birthday concert performances in cooperation with Universal Studios Beijing, and launched life-sized two-dimensional porcelain figures in partnership with Jingdezhen Porcelain Factory of China. In terms of the density of cross-brand collaborations and tour performances, Luo Tianyi barely has any rivals among virtual singers.

14 years on, Luo Tianyi's "schedule" is still fuller than most active virtual idols.

Tianyi's Study Tour Notes

Hearing about Luo Tianyi's 14th anniversary concert, many people's top concern is probably "How is she doing now?"

After all, as a virtual idol, Luo Tianyi now has countless competitors. Not to mention pure virtual characters such as Xingtong and Luming that emerged in earlier years, the group of virtual YouTubers that has been growing continuously since Kizuna Ai first appeared has already taken up a large share of the virtual idol market.

Now, with breakthroughs in AI technology, the digital pet market has boomed, and a large number of AI virtual companion products are expected to hit the market in the future, such as Lin Li from miHoYo. In contrast, even though Luo Tianyi frequently rolls out collaborations and holds concerts more often, many people outside the niche circle feel that her public presence is "not as strong as it used to be".

miHoYo's virtual character "Lin Li"

However, users familiar with the V-circles or VOCALOID communities know clearly that neither Luo Tianyi nor Hatsune Miku actually competes on the same track as today's virtual idols.

At the time of their debut, virtual singers were more like tools for creating songs. The operators built a complete set of corresponding basic images and settings for different voice banks. For example, Hatsune Miku's voice is sampled from Saki Fujita, while Luo Tianyi's Chinese voice bank is sampled from voice actor Shanxin (her Japanese voice bank is sampled from Shanxin and Kano).

What truly gives virtual singers life are numerous community music creators who use them to write, submit, spread and create derivative works, and continuously endow them with unique personalities and character settings in this process.

Take Hatsune Miku as an example. She first became known to the whole world for "Ievan Polkka", a song adapted from a Finnish folk tune. Since then, green onions have become a classic iconic element of Hatsune Miku. Her widely known nickname "Her Royal Highness, the Princess" also comes from her hit single "The World is Mine" that went viral later.

All these songs, as well as subsequent works that are counted as milestones in the two-dimensional cultural history such as "Senbonzakura" and "God's Little Game", are created by UGC community music creators on the Internet — who are commonly referred to by insiders as "Producers", short for VOCALOID Producer.

"God's Little Game"

In other words, the current image of Luo Tianyi is not the result of one-way definition and operation by the official Vsinger, nor a virtual idol shaped by preset character settings. It is a natural outcome jointly shaped by Producers who build her personality, music styles and content library together.

Her vitality does not rely on a fixed content model, but comes from the combined accumulation of voice bank technology, creator ecosystem and long-term operation. Ice, Marketing Director of Vsinger Business Department, said: "The voice bank endows her with the ability to sing continuously, creators keep injecting new works and expressions into her, and the team's long-term operation makes these contents seen by more people. The three elements together form the core foundation for Luo Tianyi to grow sustainably and go through cycles."

This is by no means empty talk.

If you recall carefully, you will find that most people's impression of Luo Tianyi comes from one or several of her songs. For example, her image as a gentle young girl in the regions south of the Yangtze River comes from a large number of ancient-style community songs. In the works of different creators, she can be a girl wandering in historical imagination, a singer telling stories of ordinary people, or perform different character relationships and narratives together with other virtual singers such as Yuezheng Ling.

Luo Tianyi's "foodie" trait comes from the continuous spread of works such as "The Millennium Recipe Ode" and "Snack Feeding Song". These works string together all kinds of Chinese delicacies into a song in the form of dish name recitation, and are sung in Luo Tianyi's soft voice, making it hard for listeners not to associate her with the label of a big food lover.

Luo Tianyi's "Snack Feeding Song"

What is more remarkable is that thanks to the efforts of a large number of community music creators, Luo Tianyi has accumulated a huge library of works, which makes her image extremely solid.

The saying "You may not know her, but you must have heard the songs she sings" fits Luo Tianyi perfectly. There is even a widely known line of poetry that "Who under the sun does not know you" to describe her popularity. Of course, the more realistic situation is that even if you sincerely ask on Bilibili "Who is Luo Tianyi", netizens will only treat you as a troll, either pretend to know nothing, or reply with doge emojis nonstop.

After all, in the context of the Chinese Internet, it is difficult for most netizens not to have heard of Luo Tianyi.

Let's take a look at Luo Tianyi's works over the past 14 years. Classic songs such as "Song of the Crazy Nerve" and "Pinky Promise" are among the must-listen playlists for new Bilibili users. Her cross-talk performance with Yan He in the Bilibili New Year Gala is also a must-see content for Bilibili users.

Apart from Bilibili, Luo Tianyi's songs still go viral outside the niche circle for various accidental reasons every few years.

For example, ilem's "Ordinary DISCO" has been covered by singers such as Wang Feng and Phoenix Legend, and was even brought to the Hunan TV New Year's Eve stage by Li Yuchun in 2015. The BGM of the hit casual game "Sheep a Sheep" a few years ago is also this song.

Her work "Dala Bang" also saw phenomenal covers thanks to its playful and quirky lyric and melody arrangement. The most viral version is the cover by Zhou Shen in the program "Singer" in 2020. If you know the ACG community well enough, you will find that Zhou Shen is actually part of Luo Tianyi's massive UGC creator community.

Zhou Shen's cover of "Dala Bang"

As for "Tokyo is Not Hot" by Z Xinhao, more people regard it as a memory symbol of the Chinese Internet ten years ago rather than just a viral hit, and those who have not heard of it are the minority. On the "WeSing" platform, the number of times this song has been sung far exceeds that of other works by a huge margin.

Number of performances of "Tokyo is Not Hot" on WeSing

Of course, from another perspective, these are also the core reasons why some people think Luo Tianyi is less popular than before. On the one hand, it seems that no new viral music work related to Luo Tianyi has emerged for several years. Today, the user profile of Luo Tianyi's followers is getting clearer and more vertical, and she appears less frequently in front of the general public. On the other hand, just like "Tokyo is Not Hot", many people have unconsciously regarded Luo Tianyi as a nostalgic symbol of a bygone era, forgetting that she is still "living in the present".

Indeed, the phrase "times have changed" perfectly describes Luo Tianyi's situation.

From the perspective of official operator Vsinger, the community attribute of Luo Tianyi is now sinking to broader user groups.

Nowadays, two-dimensional culture is no longer a concept divided by separate circles, and there is no such extreme division as "only Bilibili users are two-dimensional fans" or "two-dimensional fans do not use short video platforms".

The same goes for Luo Tianyi. Five years ago, users' paths to know Luo Tianyi were relatively concentrated. Many of them got to know her through the Chinese VOCALOID community, Bilibili uploads and classic original songs. More broadly, some people learned about her through national galas and satellite TV stages as part of mass communication channels.

In the past two years, the spread of Luo Tianyi's content has become significantly more diverse.

Ice told 36Kr Games that new users may come across her popular tracks, concert stages, official content or UP masters' derivative works in Bilibili recommendations, or see stage clips, dance covers, song covers, beautiful memes and new character designs on social media platforms such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu, and even get to know her through a nice character merchandise, a brand collaboration or an external cooperation project.

All kinds of derivative works emerge in endlessly

"Short videos and social media platforms mostly serve as the entry point for users to 'see her for the first time', quickly pushing a highlight clip, a visual symbol and an emotional point to users; Bilibili and music platforms undertake the function of 'helping users understand who she is', where users can watch the full songs, concert contents and classic works, and gradually enter the original creator ecosystem and community context of Luo Tianyi," said Ice.

For example, the song "My Sadness is Made of Water" was first released in 2020, but it became popular again last year after Douyin creators adapted it into gesture dances, setting off a gesture dance craze. Many creators may not know who Luo Tianyi is, but they will make various imitative dances because the trend is highly popular, which naturally drives more people to hear the song "My Sadness is Made of Water" and brings new organic traffic to Luo Tianyi.

Up to now, the gesture dance videos themed on "My Sadness is Made of Water" on Douyin have accumulated 1.6 billion views, with more than 100,000 people participating in co-creation.

Search results for "My Sadness is Made of Water" on Douyin

Another more typical example is the collaboration between Luo Tianyi and Meituan Waimai. Since the promotion content quoted the main melody of "Luo Tianyi's Snack Feeding Song", the extremely brainwashing line "I'm hungry, I'm hungry, I'm hungry" in the song triggered viral spread. This song that many people heard in their childhood successfully set off a new wave of popularity again.