Hatsune Miku as Imagined Technology: Materiality, Connections, and the Utopia of Networks

Hatsune Miku, a virtual diva/software tool that enables anyone to use “her” voice, is featured in over 100,000 fanmade songs. This essay examines how the music videos of kz‐livetune's “Tell Your World” and Mikito‐P's “39 Music!” construct Miku herself as a form of utopian technology capable of connecting people across the world and how this message connects to the networked fan labor that creates and engages with Miku and the problems and potentials of Miku‐as‐utopian‐technology.