Human-like 3D computer-generated virtual influencers: the road to ‘hyper-realistic’ visual models/ambassadors from Los Angeles to Tokyo to Seoul
Meet Miquela, Imma, and Rozy Oh, 3 Computer-generated imagery (CGI) virtual influencers ‘based’ in the US, Japan and South Korea that do not exist in real live, yet maintain an active social media presence ‘just like’ normal influencers, collaborating with Fashion and lifestyle consumer goods brands, holding a collective Instagram following of 3,2+ Million.
According to Research from virtualhumans.org, since 2015, the total virtual influencer industry grew from 9 virtual influencers to over 200 in 2022, boosted particularly from 2017 to 2019 by global brand partnerships. In December 2020, Bloomberg predicted that the virtual influencer market could even already overtake the human influencer market as early as 2025.
The Miquela’s, Imma’s, and Rozy Oh’s of this world, put an high emphasis on independent ‘storytelling’ in contrast to virtual models from agencies such as “the world’s first all digital modelling agency” The Diigitals from Cameron-James Wilson, which solely/mostly focus on high-end Fashion and lifestyle editorial/campaign collabs, rather than content creation.
Dapper Labs, a venture known for creating consumer-focused blockchain-based experiences and digital collectibles aimed at mainstream adoption saw potential in virtual star ownership, and early October 2021 acquired Miquela’s creator: Brud inc, valued at $125 million at the time, through an all-equity deal with the intent to grow into new product areas and DAOs.
After the acquisition and bringing the full 32-person Brud team on board, Dapper Labs launched a new business called Dapper Collective, to lead the way into the future of social media, powered by Flow (blockchain), making decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) mainstream with a focus on media creators and organizations, by them referred to as ‘storytellers’.
Brud inc. started as a “transmedia studio that created digital character-driven story worlds”, yet after the 2021 takeover, got repositioned toward “creating community-owned media and collectively-built worlds” as Brud DAO, envisioning a direction where communities share responsibility for the creation, production, hype generation, and sale of their NFT projects.
The firm advocated the switch from web2 to web3, moving away from centralized, c-suite-run, hierarchal, opaque, top-down architecture, and company profits to decentralized, community-run, grassroots, transparent, self-determined, and community profits, thereby relying more on fan and collector audiences, DAO contributors, as well as social media followers.
A community-owned model, ultimately shifting from stans consuming influencer content, platforms owning content, closed content studios, singular, limiting roles, and passive consumption to fans co-creating influential stories, communities owning their content, open creative opportunities, ability to work across different teams, and active ownership.
According to Brud DAO from 2022, “the future of online communities and storytelling is built together” based on 4 key components that are supposed to sustain a value creation system; first of all, a collective shared mission, meme, investment, interest, and fandom, secondly, consensus-based voting, thirdly, a common treasury, and lastly, a communication tool.
Brud tried to define the future of spatial computing and generative media, based on fictional narratives and virtual photorealistic human characters in the form of virtual celebrities/personalities at scale making use of 3D design and animation software, telling stories through recognizable and relatable videos, images, audio, and text aimed at the younger generation.
Now, Brud is “on a journey to create a completely new way of telling stories, together with the creators of the Brud universe: @lilmiquela @blawko22 @bermudaisbae 🤖”. Out of the 3 virtual Brud stars, @lilmiquela, also known as Miquela (Sousa), claiming to be a 19-year-old robot living in LA, gained the highest social traction since her initial launch in April 2016.
Despite not having the largest following out of all virtual influencers across all social platforms in total, she for now claims the 6th top spot, with only Lu of Magalu, Barbie, Nobody sausage, Casas Bahia, and FNMeka having larger fanbases, and is often namedropped to be considered the first/most ‘hyper-realistic’ virtual influencer to achieve real mainstream popularity.
Meanwhile in Japan, the first Virtual Human Company: Aww Inc. also started “re-imagining the future of storytelling”, launching Imma and Zinn (July 2018), and Ria (March 2019). Just like @lilmiquela and @blawko22; @imma.gram and @plusticboy, are brother and sister, and @ria_ria_tokyo, Zinn’s partner, similarly to what @bermudaisbae used to be to @blawko22.
Even their fourth influencer, Asu (July 2020), has a similar (street) style to @blawko22. The company followed an initial copycat strategy, duplicating the core of Brud’s success story, culturally adjusting it, merely to make it fit the local Japanese market, yet later on continued also into other markets with Ayayi for China (May 2021) and Katie for Thailand (November 2021).
Apart from those influencers, they also got involved in Ella (October 2020) for Disney Japan, Coh (March 2021), in partnership with KDDI Corporation, a Japanese telecommunications operator, and Belle (July, 2021), as the main character of the animated film Belle, followed by their Anome virtual live streamers: Bikinina Nikibi and Meidogahara Sarasa in 2023 (more to come).
After Aww Inc’s first 4 copies, also in South Korea, many companies started to increasingly enter the virtual human market. For instance, Locus-x, the firm behind the locally popular ‘virtual artists’ Rozy Oh (August 2020), the virtual family Hogonheil (February 2022), and Ryu-id (April 2022), with the aim to become “the No1. virtual entertainment group” (in the metaverse).
A vision, seemingly, in line with “Global No1. Entertainment Group” SM Entertainment, the South Korean agency behind K-pop group Aespa that features human and virtual members in the metaverse, that in 2023, caused 2 multinationals wanting control through majority share ownership, with Kakao buying a 9.05% ($172.8M) stake and HYBE, a 14.8% ($334M) stake.
What do you think of CGI virtual influencers? Do you believe they (will) increasingly shape (our) culture through storytelling/entertainment? Will virtual humans (be) develop(ed) even further through DAOs and web3, live streaming, and the metaverse, as these global industry leaders envision? Is this something, end-consumers (in certain countries) will actually value?
Share your opinion in the comments!
