On March 18, 2015 a Paris student Dmitry created a YouTube channel called “Chilled Cow”. About two years later, on February 25, 2017 the channel launched its first live broadcast with music in the Lo-fi genre, the background being an excerpt from the anime “Whisper of the Heart” , in which the main character is studying. The channel was starting to gain popularity and with it came increasing copyright claims due to the use of an animated clip by Studio Ghibli. In 2018 the channel was blocked and with that, the stream stopped.
It seems to be a short history of an unremarkable channel. The live broadcast option appeared on YouTube in 2011 and by 2017 there were several dozen channels broadcasting music of different genres. The Chilled Cow is likely to be just one example of a media failure.
However, the key word here is indeed “seems”. Now the channel has more than 11 million subscribers and 1.3 billion views: its name is heard by almost all pupils and students. Let’s remember together how “Chilled Cow” turned into a cultural phenomenon called “Lofi Girl” and where the girl with endless homework came from.
In 2018, the channel was blocked for copyright infringement. Not wanting to give up the idea of a musical line, channel creator Dmitry decided to create his own heroine in a similar classic anime style and began to look for an artist. In September 2018, Dmitry’s announcement to the Emil Kohl School of Animation was responded to by Colombian artist Juan Pablo Machado. He was in his senior year when he received an offer to draw a new character for a musical genre.
Among Machado’s many sketches, one is particularly notable. This is how Jade came about (yes, lo-fi student with a name). She sat at her desk, flipping through the pages of her notebook and occasionally glancing out the window as soft lo-fi music played in the background. Notably, the Jade room window overlooks the historic center of Lyon, the city in France where Juan Machado spent five years studying the art of animation. A small nod to Alma Mater, thanks in large part to the famous student appearing online. And every few hours, the broadcast changes the time of day, which creates a sense of immersion for channel viewers. Especially those who live in the European time zone.
Machado himself has more than once admitted that he did not expect the 80-second animated film to be so successful. In early 2020, he was even contacted by a representative of a museum in Seoul who wanted to make the illustration part of a permanent exhibition.
Not only the Korean museum recognizes the cultural significance of “Lofi Girl”. From a background character for music programs, Jade has become a virtual icon of the digital space. Several dozen channels with a similar musical orientation began to feature their own characters, and fans of the original heroine kept coming up with drawings with a rethink of Jade’s image. Thereby, for instance, in 2020 artists from all over the world decided to paint the eternal student in the reality of their country.
References to “Lofi Girl” can even be found in popular culture. In the Steven Universe animated series: Future, one of the heroines – Connie – is depicted sitting in the identical “Lofi Girl” pose. And the game’s official YouTube channel World of Warcraft published a Jade-themed parody as part of a campaign promoting the Shadowlands add-on.
Jade has become a loyal companion and role model for those who are drawn to the flow while working or studying. She is concentrated, undistracted and constantly immersed in her studies. The stream goes on around the clock and is uninterrupted, so that anyone can connect to the “study session” with a student who never looks up from her notes. Many users admitted that the virtual girl helped them a lot to survive lonely evenings spent studying textbooks and even motivated them to spend more time on homework.
On February 22, 2020, an unexpected and shocking event happened to Lofi Girl fans: YouTube moderators blocked the channel with the broadcast for “violating the rules of the service.” And although after a couple of hours the platform apologized and restored the channel, the broadcast had to be restarted. The abrupt end of the stream was recorded, creating the longest video in YouTube history at 13,165 hours, or 548 days of non-stop streaming. Users calculated that during all this time of continuous study, Jade would have already managed to get several higher educations and learn seven of the most difficult languages of the world (on average, it takes 1750 hours to reach the level of fluent communication).
Many users have grown and learned with the anime girl, the audience has changed with each other, and Jade has always remained the same, opening up more and more new notes. Maybe one day she’ll be able to relax, like all those chilled out on her cozy lo-fi playlist.
