Why did Hololive’s Flow Glow lose subs after debut?

Hololive recently debuted their latest idol group, Flow Glow, but fans noticed a sudden loss of subs hours later.

Debuts are always a celebratory event for vtuber fans, as they get to meet some amazing talents. Typically, these talents tease their debuts through social media and hype videos on their newly-minted YouTube channels. Naturally, fans flock to those channels in droves, quickly raising sub counts to over 100k in some cases. Much the same happened for Hololive’s Flow Glow, the second generation of Hololive DEV_IS after ReGloss. Although the debuts were undoubtedly a success, garnering hundreds of thousands of views, fans noticed something strange.

All of Flow Glow suddenly lost tens of thousands of subscribers in a single day, and here’s why.

Why did Hololive’s Flow Glow lose subs?

Reports suggest YouTube automatically deleted thousands of subs from Flow Glow to prevent bot surges.

Although Cover Corp is an established multi-channel network, it’s become an expectation for new channels, like Flow Glow,  to lose subs. YouTube’s algorithm reportedly culled subscribers from Flow Glow channels automatically as a stop-gap against bots. In the past, some channels have exploited bots to boost subscriber counts inorganically. However, YouTube often fails to consider sudden groundswell support from actual fans.

Many real Hololiver viewers were included in the unsub wave, prompting criticism against YouTube. Regardless, Hololive fans who subscribed to Flow Glow are highly recommended to check if they are still subscribed to their favorite members. As of this writing, Hololive nor YouTube has made a statement.

When ReGloss debuted in 2023, the group experienced similar issues to a significant degree. ReGloss members went from over 50,000 subs each to as low as 12,000 subs before their debuts. Fortunately, the numbers recovered quickly after the proper introductions.

Currently, each Flow Glow member is still in the realm of over 100,000 subscribers.

Hololive Flow Glow to hit 1 million views with first song

Flow Glow’s first song FG Roadster is near the million views landmark only a day after release.

Despite the subscriber setbacks, the overall response to Hololive Flow Glow has been overwhelmingly positive. Flow Glow’s debut music video, FG Roadster, will almost certainly break into the one million views milestone soon, setting the stage for future success. Even so, fans should stay vigilant of YouTube’s unreliable algorithm to stay subscribed to their favorite vtubers.