Gumiebooks

gumiebooks' profile picture as of February 23rd, 2020.

**gumiebooks** is a parody account of Internet Co, Ltd.'s GUMI from Megpoid run by Twitter users VocaLune and MU5HR00MZ. Made completely on a whim by the former, she has become known for erratic, absurdist posts and edits.

## History

### Background

In late 2018, VOCALOID parody accounts started to become more and more prevalent in the fandom, largely due to mikumiku\_ebooks' spectacular spike in popularity. Wanting to engage with the community, and reasoning that more popular VOCALOIDs (like Len, Rin, Meiko) would likely already have parody accounts, VocaLune registered gumiebooks, completely on a whim, citing mikumiku\_ebooks as an inspiration after spending "three or so days straight laughing" at her content.

Though mostly comprised of the absurd, dril-like posts that would continue to make up the bulk of her posts, early posts by gumiebooks were sometimes experimental and odd. Such posts ranged from small, improvised drawings to recontextualized photos from VocaLune's life (e.g. an overturned bottle cap being called a "roman Colosseum").

Initial interactions were slow, and not always positive. VocaLune had joined a popular VOCALOID Discord server and interacted in character, and although the members of the server would eventually warm up to her, she was initially dismissed as a ripoff of mikumiku\_ebooks.

### Early stages (June 2018 - August 2018)

Despite this, she made an effort to interact more frequently with the community, eventually becoming acquainted with a Len parody account, cfm\_len\_eng, and another Gumi account, gumipresso. She also began to interact more and more frequently with mikumiku\_ebooks, resulting in eventual growth which would lead to her own base of followers.

As she was struggling to find her own voice, Gumi found herself shifting rapidly through styles and behaviors. Though always retaining an unusual, eccentric vibe, she was unable to root herself firmly as either a shitpost or an RP account; the line distinguishing the two was very very thin at the time. Many of her interactions were RP-like, and she had even established a relationship with a (now-defunct) Haku account, ssr\_haku\_en. However, as she moved more and more to absurd comedy, RP-like interactions began to decrease in frequency, and have since become very, very sparse.

### Midori Virtual Tour

Recognizing (as well as contributing to) the demand for a MIKU EXPO-like event for Internet Co. Ltd VOCALOIDs, Gumi tweeted, on July 5th, 2018:

> **gumi** (@gumiebooks): hey you know what would be a fun time??? a virtual gumiexpo event!! rt if ur interested, if enough people do, i might set something up :0
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This post gained traction very, very quickly, prompting her to organize the event by crowdsourcing candidates from her own follower base and mikumiku\_ebooks' Discord server. Despite the promising start, however, many team members became inactive or unenthusiastic, bar silylily\_ebooks, and eventually, the project had to be cancelled, much to her chagrin. Since, most posts pertaining to Midori Virtual Tour have been deleted.

### Growth (August 2018 - September 2018)

As Gumi gained popularity, she found herself interacting and making jokes of and with more popular accounts, such as mikumiku\_ebooks and kagarinchan\_nau. Becoming an active member, and later a moderator, Gumi found herself becoming increasingly present, to the point where eventually, she considered taking a break. Despite this, she made an effort to engage. She began holding events on mikumiku\_ebooks' Discord server, ranging from hosting a Minecraft server (affectionately called "gumitown" by its players) to games of Jackbox Party Pack- usually with Len as the butt of the joke, usually to positive reception.

The growing attention gave Gumi more room to experiment. In addition to Midori Virtual Tour, Gumi began to post other, more erratic (and ultimately discontinued) things. Of these, there were two playlists of music curated by VocaLune. The first, which featured an eclectic mix of artists ranging from Chipzel to 40mP, had little support, and the second was ultimately never published for a combination of reasons.

Twitter-wise, Gumi found her tweets gaining traction. Many of these were bandwagon or snowclone-style tweets with a subtle twist, though some were original jokes or wholesome PSAs. The "silly" nature of Gumi was expanded and revised upon in this period, to the point where Lily ultimately concluded (after a rather short search) that Gumi was "the silliest account [on Twitter]."

### First hiatus & continued success (September 2018 - November 2018)

Despite the positive attention, however, VocaLune found themselves in an odd position. Wanting to maintain interactions, but growing tired and stressed, they often claimed to be going on hiatus, only to return in just a few days. Their own personal emotions bled into their tweets on the account, often resulting Gumi herself being portrayed as stressed, tired, and self-deprecating on occasion.

Ultimately, on September 23rd, 2018, she made a post which read simply, "thank you". On September 27th, 2018, she followed with two more tweets; the first read, "im out of tweets bye twitter", and the second had a bit more finality:

> **gumi** (@gumiebooks): thank u all...... u have been 2 kind 2 me i might make tweets again but...... i am out of things 2 say rn.... ily and remember 2 always chase ur dreams... ill see u when my v5 drops 💚💚
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After this, she went on hiatus, and did not tweet again until October 10th, 2018- in effect, 13 days.

The posts which immediately followed marked a sort of new era for the account- the first was a short video which consisted of the opening of Triple Baka, with Neru's phone beeps tuned to the first three notes of MEGALOVANIA- this remains as one of Gumi's most popular posts. She began to cement her silly reputation by posting more and more absurd content, ranging from comically bombastic statements to non-sequiturs, though she still found the time for the occasional wholesome or informative post. She found greater success during this period, with posts frequently breaking 10 likes, considered to be very good by her own standards.

### Two moderator era (November 2018 - present)

Around November 2018, VocaLune once again found themselves distressed and unstable, to the point of recklessly giving away the login info to gumiebooks in mikumiku\_ebooks' Discord server. Though ultimately the account remained intact, three posts by cfm\_rin\_eng were made. They continued such self-destructive behavior by posting cryptic, unusually dark material on gumiebooks in an attempt to lose followers. Realizing such behavior was not only unproductive but also damaging to those around them, in a now-deleted post, VocaLune put out applications to find a second moderator, ultimately selecting Twitter user MU5HR00MZ, former moderator of a LUMi parody account. Pledging to take a break, VocaLune attempted (briefly) to step away and decompress, only to return in less than 3 days.

The posts which followed, from early December 2018 to mid February 2019, found both moderators struggling to create content which was engaging. With few exceptions, nearly none of Gumi's posts or interactions were able to garner much traction. On February 16th, 2019, VocaLune ultimately went on hiatus once again, leaving MU5HR00MZ to post on their own. They posted twice- once on the same day the hiatus was announced, and again on February 27th. VocaLune returned on March 4th, 2019, and in the months to follow, saw success similar to that of the account's growth phase.

Gumi, once again, became a present force in the VOCALOID community- though not quite to the extent of mikumiku\_ebooks. Her posts began to include elements of commentary, and media posts became more frequent, often being far more engaging than posts without media attached. With two moderators, however, her content sometimes was paradoxical or conflicting. On one occasion, both moderators happened to make the same joke at once, albeit phrased differently. On April 29th, 2019, gumiebooks surpassed 1,000 followers.

### Second hiatus & difficulties (July 2019 - present)

After a long period of engagement, on July 1st, 2019, Gumi disappeared from Twitter, not posting for almost an entire month, until her return on July 30th, 2019. She attributes her return to her having "cursed herself for her hubris" and because of this, being "cursed to remain on this hellsite for all eternity!!", a thinly veiled reference to Brian David Gilbert.

In early October 2019, VocaLune once again began having doubts about the effectiveness and reach of gumiebooks, asking if anyone "still enjoy[ed] the account". After this, posts became more sparse, being separated at first by days, then by weeks, and ultimately months. Tweets from this time period did not fare as well as the ones in others, ultimately resulting in poorer motivation and, from there, poorer content. Aware of her growing irrelevancy, Gumi tweeted on New Year's Eve:

> **gumi** (@gumiebooks): in 2020, i'm going to do exactly what i did in 2019 and be somewhat relevant at the start of the year and completely DIE by the end of it
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Gumi began to see success once more in early January 2020. In response to growing erratic behavior amongst the more RP-aligned VOCALOID parody accounts, Gumi took the opportunity to poke fun and express confusion about the events. She also began to return to her roots, once again interacting with other accounts and posting edits. Though still somewhat confused about where to go next, she remains optimistic and ready to post whatever at a moment's notice.

## Character Information

Gumi lives in a mansion with the other VOCALOIDs of Internet Co. As a result, she lives with Lily, and causes the latter to experience true fear and silliness multiple times a day, if not multiple times a second. She quarrels often with Lily about who, between them, is the sillier individual, but ultimately always makes up with her, only to inevitably cause yet another fight due to some other outrageous act. Gumi, on at least one occasion, was responsible for "breaking" Lily by causing her to keysmash erratically, something which the green-haired VOCALOID finds not only amusing, but easy.

Personality wise, Gumi is mostly an exuberant, eccentric, if somewhat confusing individual. Her mood swings wildly from time to time, but she possesses an unshakable aura of silliness, and will stop at nothing to make those around her laugh and smile. Despite this, she is prone to periods of anxiety and stress, and sometimes self-deprecates, though this has become less and less frequent.

## Trivia

* Originally, Gumi's twitter handle was "gumi\_ebooks." She loathed this and changed it as soon as she was able to.