[eschatology]

Just because you are out of the loop does not mean it’s meaningless — in some spaces the term is very straightforward and concise

I’d cut down the snark; this news aggregator is not built for you specifically, there will be many things that you are unaware of and I don't think they should be met with snark (there must be some reason why people invent a new term for it; in this case, it is to refer specifically to an animated avatar rigged to a face (or body) camera usually for a video streaming activity. Usually it is comprised of many moving components and assets, a PNGtuber works off a single PNG file, and thus easier/cheaper to get started with).

[atoav]

"In our niche hobby we call it a singlyjack, what is there not to understand?" and then it turns out a siglyjack is more or less the same as a regular flathead screwdriver just painted with a purple color.

I am not to judge slang here, but animating character pictures between two states has been around for ages. Especially in animation (before computers existed), but also more specific in games (e.g. early Metal Gear Solid games, Doom, come to mind).

When this image (animated or not) represents a person online it was called an avatar since the dawn of time. Indpenedent of wheter it was realistic or just depicted the insides of a gearbox.

Now I am not against niche slang terms at all, but if your description of what it is hinges on understanding the slang term that you used for the title, that is a self-referential loop that doesn't help anybody: Snaglyjack is a snaglyjack-tool made from hardened steel

So with a short non-niche-focused phrase like "a lofi two-state avatar, animated by audio levels" most people would be able to imagine what it is the thing is doing. If that is not the goal, that is okay, but since it was posted on HN..

[boredhedgehog]

But how can you tell how niche your hobby is from the perspective of some other hobby?

I would have assumed vtubing to be pretty mainstream already, at least after all the Gawr Gura memes.

On the other hand, I still click most Go threads on HN, expecting them to be about the board game...