FENOMENI / PHENOMENA
FUTURE AT THE DOOR Has the bell tolled for living influencers?
The new rules of influence on social networks come from the virtual world of digital people who are generated by artificial intelligence and have frighteningly realistic qualities that are carefully designed to ensure their characteristics satisfy broad demographics M ore than a year before the pandem- ic changed the way we perceive (and use) digital media forever, a futuristic trend brought a completely new kind of impact to social networks – virtual influencers. These fictive, computer-generated individ- uals continued their tireless infiltration of the market under the conditions of lockdown, collaborating with prestigious brands and marketing agencies that ena- ble them to earn money and make new lucrative en- gagements. Oh yes, virtual influencers make money just like those that are made of flesh and blood. And that income is expected to grow year on year. By definition, a virtual influencer is a fictional ‘per- son’ generated by artificial intelligence and carefully designed to ensure its characteristics satisfy the broad demographics of social networks. And they have what some would call ‘frighteningly realistic’ features. They behave like real-life influencers: they talk “candidly” in front of the camera, post selfies, and don't hide their thoughts and feelings. The only difference is the con- tent. And, of course, the most obvious difference - their speech is pre-generated. Nor do they age. They can re- main teenagers forever, if someone wants to program them in such a way. The most famous example is @lilmiquela - Miquela Sousa, in every sense the first AI (artificial intelligence) influencer. She is a 19-year-old of Brazilian-Spanish or- igin: a fashion model and singer who was created in 2016 by creative agency Brud. Since making her de- but, she has amassed three million followers on Insta- gram, and in 2018 she even made it onto Time mag- azine’s esteemed list of “Most Influential People on Instagram”. Miquela regularly joins forces with pres- tigious bands like Prada, Nike, Calvin Klein, Samsung and Mini. She recently signed a contract with agen- cy Creative Artists, becoming their first virtual client, and will earn more than 10 million dollars this year.
Like most 19-year-olds, Miquela has friends (ro- bots, of course). And they represent the fruit of the work of Brud as an agency. Blawko is a self-proclaimed “low-life who identifies as a robot man,” and Bermu- da is an “It girl” from Los Angeles who aims to inspire young entrepreneurs to engage in businesses that com- bine the latest advances in technology and the seduc- tive world of the beauty industry. However, the sto- ry doesn’t end there. Around the same time that Miquela appeared, developers brought together within the start-up Ri- ot Games (known for its mega-successful League of Legends project) created a virtual pop band, K/DA - because robots love music too, right? The girl power group disbanded, but that also happens with all such bands in “real life”. In the domain of fashion, Parisi- an fashion house Balmain quickly implemented this trend with the introduction of its own “Balmain Vir- tual Army". This was an ingenious endeavour launched by Balmain’s creative director Olivier Rousteing with the aim of promoting the current collection available online, but also the long-term representation of the brand in stylish AI circles. Judging by all accounts, the story of virtual in- fluence is on the rise. Should we worry about such a projection of the future? Probably not – with numer- ous filters and the carefully controlled narrative that’s used by “real” influencers, it is unlikely that to date, in the endless scroll of social networks, anything has had even the slightest thing in common with reality.
Developeri udruženi u
startupu Riot Games stvorili su virtuelni pop bend K/DA – jer i roboti vole muziku Developers brought together within the start- up Riot Games have created a virtual pop band, K/DA - because robots also love music
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