1. The singer, who is unreal, takes a break after the third song to greet her fans, just like a singer at a show. “Hello, New York!” she shouts, with a slightly raised timbre, a voice modulated to convey excitement. “Are you having a good time?” The capacitycrowd howls its answer, a massive and adoring yes. “I can’t hear you,” she teases, or at least it almost sounds like she’s teasing. The crowd howls louder, waving their LED glow sticks over their heads in a frenzy. From the back, a man’s voice shouts, “We love you, Miku!” All of this is exactly like any other live show. It checks all the boxes in the what-a-live-show-should-look-like list. Except the singer in question is not a person.
Her name is Hatsune Miku. She is a piece of software. Tonight, in the final show of her American tour, she is appearing in the form of a hologram at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City. The crowd is shouting their mass adoration to the shape of a human with no substance, to a flickering light projected onto a series of screens. They want an emptiness to know that they love her.
