The clip comes from Japanese For Real 2020 #3, a Hololive segment featuring Kiryu Coco, the dragon VTuber known for her blunt humour and direct way of addressing her audience. The greeting caught on because it summed up her persona in two words: affectionate, irreverent and instantly recognisable to fans who followed her streams. As clips circulated on social media and in fan edits, 'hey bastards' became a shorthand welcome among her community, and it is still reused as an inside joke long after the original broadcast.