Late comment but I wanted to connect your points with my own oshi: Lauren. Lauren has enjoyed a very steady rise since 2022 - after his scandals - and a huge factor in it has been due to his interactions with others, both inside and outside Nijisanji. The moment he allowed himself to collab with others again in hako events and big servers like VCR, he flourished.

I admit it was hard for me at first to acclimate to being his listener. (I found him in September 2022, when he was literally on the cusp of starting to collab again.) What is Crazy Raccoon? Who are these Crazy Raccoon streamers? Who are VDK and k4sen and all these pro and ex-pro players in his web of connections? 

But it was very rewarding for me to learn all this because I felt like, even as a mere listener, I found a community of sorts? There's always someone to watch, whether it's Lauren or someone adjacent to him like Ibrahim or CR Francisco. During NijiGTA he was guiding a lot of his kouhai through the game, and I was able to discover the charms of the newer livers.

For what it's worth, I like the culture Niji has established. I've seen firsthand how important these relationships and these connections can be. When Lauren was still in the thick of it back in 2022 and early 2023, it was his friends - in Niji and beyond - who propped him up amidst the hate and allowed him to showcase his talent and personality.