The virtual YouTuber agency Hololive announced that, at the end of August, it would no longer accept gifts addressed for its talents. Hololive’s Japanese Twitter account gave the announcement after privacy issues arose around tracking objects such as Samsung’s SmartTag and Apple’s AirTag, which could potentially be used for stalking the Hololive talents.
The devices in question are small enough to fit on a key ring and their primary purpose is to send out a signal to the user’s smartphone if the user misplaces the object they are attached to. For clumsy people like myself, these are pretty useful and entirely benign in their function, but of course, ne’er-do-wells could use these devices for ill intent. Whether or not anyone from Hololive or another agency received a tracker in their fanmail is unclear at this stage. Hopefully, such stalking instances haven’t actually occurred and this is just preventative.
The good news is that fan letters and cards can still be sent to Hololive members. If you wanted to thank a Hololive talent for helping keep your mental health in check over the past year, you can still do that. Packaged items not delivered directly from an e-commerce store like Amazon or Rakuten, however, will not be accepted. Packaged items have to be delivered directly from the e-commerce seller, so in other words, not sent to you first. Hand-made gifts and doujinshi have to be approved beforehand. The full list of acceptable and unacceptable gifts is listed here on their contact page.
It’s a shame that they have to enact a blanket punishment on everyone because of a few creeps, but it is what it is.
J-List has some snazzy Hololive merch up for grabs, like this adorable Gawr Gura Nendoroid up for pre-order. Check out all the Hololive gifts and goodies here! 
Want it but can’t spring for the $50+ price tag? I feel it, I’ve been there before. Luckily J-List is running a $30 store credit giveaway to three lucky winners. Check it out here and maybe you’ll be one of them!
Source: Anime News Network
