Uncovering VSEA: An Exposé
It has come to our attention that the Singapore-based VSEA has engaged in illicit activities (ie. breaching Section 405 Companies Act 1967). There have also been numerous allegations regarding VSEA. We have made a compilation of screenshots and interviews with former members of VSEA. We hope to provide a clearer understanding of the situation so that the concerned reader may derive their own opinion on the matter.
To introduce myself, I am a former member of VSEA's Gen 1.5 working with other ex-talents to create an objective document highlighting the concerns raised. We want to emphasise that our goal is to raise awareness and to better inform prospective talents before considering applying to the unregistered entity, VSEA.
Breach Of Companies Act 1967: Section 405 (Singapore)
The VSEA admin told the talents that he was the CEO of VSEA and that VSEA is a company. It was always, “I am the boss” or “I am the CEO”. We fact-checked this by interviewing other talents who worked with VSEA, and it was unanimous.
For clarification, all businesses formally registered in Singapore have a UEN Number. When inquired about VSEA’s UEN Number, the admin was ignorant and eventually admitted that VSEA is not an officially listed company. There is no such thing as an “unofficial” company as it breaches Section 405 of Singapore’s Companies Act 1967 and is punishable up to 2 years jail and SGD$50,000.
Official Source from Government website:
VSEA has also claimed that it is a company in its talent contract. (See the following screenshots:
Inappropriate Management Of Underage Talents
Regarding the minor allegations, there were 5 minors within the agency. A talent spoken up about how they were told to hide the fact they were a minor.
In the screenshot above, he confirmed that there were other minors in the agency.
This talent also had issues with Admin trying to get their personal info as well.
And when this talent was trying to leave VSEA, this is what he said.
This was also what he said after we all ended up leaving VSEA.
He is waiting till november as both talents are minors and he would like to wait till they are of age.
Gen 1.5
Gen 1.5 was formed by Admin very soon after Gen 1 was announced. We were generally supposed to be an “indie” gen (meaning we brought in our own things such as models and everything else) but were attributed to the “company”. This gen was never publicly announced however, due to most of us leaving and it being dissolved shortly after. The 4 out of the 5 ended up leaving which made Admin dissolve the gen.
When we joined, we were told that we would keep 95% and he would take 5% which is fine. He then mentioned that ALL merch revenue would go to him. This makes almost no sense since we were an “indie” Gen. Everything we brought in was our own. None of our merch sales should go to them since no part is theirs. He had only mentioned this to one member of Gen 1.5, which was then relayed to the rest of us and that's the screenshot that was relayed above.
Gen 1.5 was specifically created to use us for our creative abilities.
Admin has constantly told us to make stuff for him. Below, we can prove that Admin isn’t paying us much and sometimes even making us rush deadlines with little to no money or even no money at all.
And he likes to word it as assignments or missions as you can see below. We will be talking about another artist who was being used as well.
Unpaid Artists
For the next part, I interviewed an artist previously involved with VSEA to share their perspective on things. The Blue Text will represent their voice word for word.
I would open commissions for 15$ , and he bought two. He told me he would pay after sketch, but I waited so long n due to him telling me to continue . I coloured n finish it when he didn’t pay yet .
Convo w Admin^ Convo w the other artist^
He would only pay after WEEKS of me waiting . during the same day he pay another artist (above) for their 15$ art he finally paid me.
And during the time he haven’t paid me yet for the two art work …. He started telling me to do missions = free stuff
And during that time I was extra busy with other clients , he would rush me everyday n give me false hope that he will pay for it
I even had to skip some days to finish his missions just to end up with no money or anything.
This is him saying he will give me money … cause then I will draw faster
And AFTER I’m done with my logos and asking him for a raise. He said He will pay but if only Revolut comes. ( I have mentioned ALOTTT of time Revolut doesn’t work )
So yea these r the free things he digged from me because apparently I’m a low price high quality. I only realized I’m being used when other ppl r pointing obvious things that doesn’t seem obvious .
Don’t be fool by V-Sea y’all.
As you can see, he used the terms “missions” and “assignments” again. Till now, he has only paid them $30 USD for only 2 pieces. He had only paid for 2 out of the 6 that were forced onto them.
Interview with ex-talent, Dani Drywall
Moving on to the next person, we have Dani Drywall. Dani was part of Gen 1 and was supposed to debut in August. Everything in gold is written by Dani, themselves.
Hi. I am the talent behind Dani Drywall. I am just sad. I am down $246 australian dollars and just quite upset. I feel no malice towards the people within VSEA but I question management alot. Why open a generation 1 of talents without NDAs, Contracts, A website, emails for gen 1 or even any money? It felt like a group of friends who said "Let's make a band" without knowing how to play. It's just depressing. I had so much hope for Dani. I loved Dani. I had so much fun. I met a group of talented and nice people. It is disappointing that this is the outcome. My experience was a consistent feeling of being in the dark and getting ignored. "They already announced my twitter before my model artist has been chosen and used art I didn't want posted. I guess I'm just trapped" is the first thought I had that made me scared. I have no ill will towards anyone there. Others may have their qualms but my heart simply can't do that. I know it sounds ridiculous but I am a crybaby and I find it really hard to dislike people sometimes, it's hard to explain. My only upsetness is towards management and even then I find it difficult to be upset with them. I don't believe they were evil, just in over their heads. Do I believe shady actions were made? Yes. Intentional? No, just plain naive. I was promised a lot but met with nothing but the stress of wondering. I just have so much fear that doing this will taint my career path, the future I've quite literally had recurring dreams of. I want to be on a hologram screen, to dance and sing for even a small collection of fans in a convention hall. I want to see penlights glowing my color and hear them answer my calls. I want to be an idol so badly and there's nothing else I want in life. I'm just so thankful for the people helping me out of my hole and into a place where I can feel more comfortable. I have felt so alone for so long and I feel like such a crybaby for shedding so many tears and filling my nose with snot. I'm just astonished that people want to help me. Please please I beg of you to not harass anyone still there. Please. I am just sad and disappointed.
I hope my stress will end q^q I guess from here I'll be back on the grind and trying my best to get to my convention hall dream.
I was also completely scammed with the app Revolut. I was asked to make 3 separate purchases using the digital credit card within the app and the invite code sent to me by Admin. He said it would give him 100 dollars if I did so and I ASSUMED that money would go to me as it was my money I was spending to do this. I was wrong.
I lost about 45 dollars from doing this and didn’t get anything but 2 dollars back.
Here you can see ME paying for my debut. I had told myself It’d be ok because they said they would reimburse me once the company was officially registered. I just wanted so badly for my debut to be good and look like my agency was professional. I wanted it so bad to work out.
I sent this sometime later as I HOPED this message would knock some sense into them to actually plan.
My 3rd point is referring to people who had the manager role within our server that seemed to disappear one day. I was told at least one of them was a friend. So I assume that they are all friends who were in the server at one point which is unprofessional as the server was used to conduct interviews and our past live accounts could be seen.
I feel that my chill and lax personality being mistaken for “cool with my coworkers being underaged” is a ridiculous statement. Lacking experience in Vtubing Agencies shouldn’t make you dumb enough to hire teenagers.
I don’t have anything against the people who were minors (I will NOT be naming who) but they should have NOT been hired.
I felt trapped within the agency due to our twitters already being released so I didn’t know what to do. I had already spent money on my starting soon/end screen, purchased an emote from someone taking emergency comms and bought the chibi model I was asked to pirate.
I was not under any contract to do any of this which may make me seem stupid but you have to understand. I felt trapped in VSEA, I felt like if I left I would never have growth or interactions like the ones I experienced in VSEA. I thought I would stay for a year and be able to graduate owning the character of Dani Drywall but I found myself just completely miserable in VSEA.
I was terrified of being blamed for the problems within our agency and completely stressed out by the lack of transparency and communication.
I and Tania told Admin multiple times to not announce our twitters so soon as that is not how a regular company operates and we were ignored.
I told Admin multiple times to not publish the artwork I was drawing within the discord call we were having as I wasn’t comfortable with that and I was ignored. He gave me 3 dollars as “reimbursement” but giving me money days later doesn’t stop my feelings being ignored.
My feelings were only acknowledged after the post was made and I shouted in the call “WHY DID YOU POST THAT, I LITERALLY SAID NOT TO?”. It was PRIVATE art I did not want my art posted. When
I felt the way our twitters were announced was highly unprofessional and was an extreme first red flag.
I wish I just left earlier but I also don’t. I stayed for the wonderful people I met and I would feel completely lost without them. I am grateful for them helping me live out my idol dreams.
Lack Of Talent Privacy
Info spreading. Admin likes to talk. A LOT. He would talk to 1 talent about stuff and go to the next talent and we will know everything about the other talent. This happens so much that I actually got to know the others before meeting them.
The following screenshots came from 2 different people. There are more incidents of this but people talked about would not like them to be revealed.
Miscellaneous
Extras shedding more light on things that doesnt fit in any of the above.
Regarding art related stuff. He would use us for free or as cheaply as possible. Many of us were used to our talents and skills. Making art, rigging, making 2D models etc. He still has all the money from getting us to get on Revolut and still havent paid us for the work we have done.
When we left, he messaged a lot of us trying to amend things and fix things or cover things up. He said he will own up to his mistakes and fix everything. This screenshot below was what he said to another talent he thought wasn't with us.
Closing Statement
We would like to thank you for your time. We have tried to objectively provide the facts and share the perspectives of former talents previously involved with VSEA. We are not imposing any opinions and wish for the readers to use the information to form your own judgment on this matter. However, we will emphasise that VSEA is not a registered entity and consequently, is not a legal business. Please take this into consideration.
TLDR
- There are/were minors in the company with Admin PURPOSELY hiding this fact knowing it could get him in trouble.
- This “agency” isn't officially set up as a legitimate company which is illegal.
- Admin has not provided the proper paperwork such as contracts to anyone that he has hired.
- Gen 1.5 was created to use our special talents that could help the “agency”.
- Admin saying all of Gen 1.5 merch rev will go to the “company” when we own our own models and IPs.
- Artists who have done a LOT of work for the company were not paid or were paid very little.
- Admin would try to convince artists from the company to make work for free by calling it a “mission” (will get into this a bit more later).
- Admin has little to no knowledge on how to run a VTuber “company” and has relied on his talents to show him how. (which we the talents don't even know how to do)
- Admin has called talents names behind their backs.
- Admin has shared information about talents to other people in the company without their consent or any true reason to do so when it isn't his place.
- Admin has little to no knowledge on VTuber model pricing and has expected to get a model for 40 dollars. (Art and Rigging)
- Admin has given the OK for projects and then has backtracked a lot.
- Admin has asked a minor for their address to send them a mic for streaming despite the minor giving him alternative options for how to get the mic. Such as sending the money so they could buy it themselves.
- Admin has had too close of a relationship to his talents and would try to talk to them about irl stuff a lot. This includes minors.
- Admin made talents use their own money (over $200AUD) and said they would give it back but never did.
- Admin made us all get Revolut to get referral money (which he hardly even used to pay us for our work)