DigitrevX, an American animator of anime-style 3D character models for VTubers, was commissioned to create Projekt Melody's original avatar. She is rendered in real time using the game engine Unity. She has purple and blue hair and an adhesive bandage on her nose, and her appearance was influenced by anime such as Ghost in the Shell and Hyperdimension Neptunia.
Melody claims to be an artificial intelligence, with her first appearance in July 2019 on Twitter involving her acting as a broken chat program that progressively developed sentience. She describes herself as "the first ... 3D rendered hentai camgirl."
Projekt Melody hosted her first stream on Chaturbate on February 7, 2020. During the three days after this stream, her Twitter follower count increased from 700 to more than 20,000. While her streams are in progress, Melody uses a Bluetooth-enabled bullet vibrator that reacts to donations from viewers.
Projekt Melody's popularity drew criticism from fellow webcam models, who argued that she does not experience the same degree of vulnerability as human models, and questioned if she belonged on Chaturbate. Projekt Melody subreddit moderator "jyl5555" said that fans enjoy the "wittiness and absurdity of Melody as a concept".
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