The mysterious disappearance of the main character of the YouTube channel Lofi Girl – an anime girl named Jade – was part of an elaborate marketing campaign that prepared subscribers for the appearance of a new character.

Lofi Girl disappeared for almost a day: instead of the usual animation, where the girl taught lessons, and chill-hop music played in the background, the audience temporarily saw only an empty room. Another broadcast, which the channel launched, showed another room with a timer that counted down.

Eventually, when the time was up, a new character entered the room and sat down at the computer. Users have already nicknamed the guy Synthwave Boy because his broadcast features synthwave music, a subgenre of electronic music that uses synthesizer sounds and tries to mimic the sound of classic movie and video game soundtracks from the 1980s.

All marks a very huge day for the channel as we take a new 24/7 livestream on YouTube! ?

Introducing a brand new character in the Universe Lofi, we bring to you the genre of Synthwave — beats to chill/game to! ? pic.twitter.com/wlG9Awc4S2

— Lofi Girl (@lofigirl) April 11, 2023

The interior of Synthwave Boy’s room is appropriate, with a retro computer with a CRT monitor and mechanical keyboard, and what looks like a Sony Walkman portable audio player.

The Lofi Girl itself hasn’t gone anywhere – it’s just that the channel now has three streaming streams: synthwave music for relaxing or gaming, original chill-hop radio for work or study, and calmer music for relaxing or sleeping.

Both characters have pets—Jade has a cat, and the guy (who hasn’t actually been named by the team yet) has a dog. And it seems that they are neighbors – in the video with Lofi Girl, you can see a window that lights up in blue (her colleague’s room is decorated in the same color).

• The broadcast on the Lofi Girl YouTube channel is the longest stream in the history of the platform, which began back in 2017. It was interrupted several times after copyright complaints, but despite all the difficulties, the channel continued to work. Lofi Girl now has over 12 million subscribers.

Lofi Girl channel broadcasts