Can avatars be perfect influencers 🤖?

Miquela, 19, with her short fringe, freckles across her face and two small pigtails, has everything it takes to be an Instagram influencer. She oozes cool (she is of Brazilian and American descent and skateboards in Los Angeles), has a loyal fan base for her music (her first single, 'Not Mine', hit Spotify's viral chart), is a social activist (she supports Black Lives Matter) and has excellent taste in fashion (she wears brands such as Proenza Schouler, Balmain and Alexander Wang).

She has already been photographed for V Magazine and Highsnobiety, and Prada has already made her a promoter of its autumn show this year in Milan, where she wore the same bright orange jacket as Gigi Hadid. But that was not the first interaction between the two; the supermodel tweeted Miquela last year: "Hey kid, you're too big for them to understand".

Miquela has more than a million followers, and her Instagram feed is packed with classy friends: she is as likely to eat pasta with Australian influencer Margaret Zhang as she is to rest her head on the shoulder of Giovanna Battaglia Engelbert, director of Vogue Japan. And yes, she is just like the rest of us: she rolls her eyes at the most basic household chores, such as doing the laundry or packing for a trip to New York.

Another star in the Instagram universe is Shudu, a striking if still new user of this digital space, with more than a hundred thousand followers. The supermodel (according to her social profile) has short hair and drew a great deal of public attention with her first posts in 2017, in which she was photographed nude with only a few gold necklaces around her neck. In February, Shudu caught the beauty world's eye when Fenty Beauty, the singer Rihanna's cosmetics line, reposted a photo of her wearing a glossy tangerine lipstick from the brand. It was a dream come true for the influencer in the making, and a stamp of approval that confirmed she was here to stay.

They sound like perfect set-ups, right? There is just one problem: neither of them is real. Both Shudu and Miquela are computer-generated avatars, and part of a new wave ready to change the fashion world. For fans, these 'women' are far more interesting than the typical bloggers who have flooded social media and, as a result, easier to 'follow'. Brands have naturally already noticed that this is a new path to take if they want to grab attention and leave the more overcrowded corners of the digital universe.

Fantasy vs reality

What is more, as clients, these avatars are easy to deal with: the clothes always fit perfectly and they never demand a front-row seat at the fashion shows. Sharing the same DNA is the only similarity between the two computer-created women.

Like any rising celebrity, Miquela has a full public relations machine working hard to keep her elaborate scheme going and promote it, including her own merchandise line. Well-known brands are happy to play along: Pat McGrath has already named her a muse, and Prada collaborated with her to announce a new set of GIFs, calling the CGI star a "mysterious cyber-model".

In March, any caution or sinister shadows around Miquela vanished when Miquela was interviewed by an Elle journalist over Google Hangouts. At the time, the avatar said she was trying to finish two songs and was hiding in a corner of the studio, signing off with typical internet speak, 'lmao'. Asked whether she was real or not, Miquela shot back: "We're talking right now, right?".

She refused to say whether she was paid for partnerships ("I think I need to call my agent, lol") and dropped a hint about a possible big reveal. "I'm excited to share more about who I am," she wrote. The big unveiling came in April, when her account was hacked, by another avatar, no less. The internet collectively lost its mind when a blonde, blue-eyed Trump supporter who called herself Bermuda seized the account. Bermuda deleted Miquela's 325 posts and posted six of herself, forcing Miquela to admit whether she was real or not.

The hostile takeover ended hours after it began, with Bermuda returning to Miquela's Instagram with a threat: "You have 48 hours to tell the world the truth or I'll do it for you," she wrote in the caption of the last post. All of Miquela's photos were restored, complete, with every like and caption still in place. "So, are we going to pretend a robot didn't invade another robot's Instagram and expose all this?" one user commented.

Miquela admitted everything shortly afterwards: "I am a robot. But this doesn't make sense. I feel so human," she wrote in a long caption. The drawn-out, dizzying stunt, worthy of a science-fiction film, revealed that both Miquela and Bermuda had been created by Brud, an artificial intelligence company based in Los Angeles. The start-up was founded by the DJ, artist and producer Trevor McFedries, in his early thirties, and staged this entire drama to attract attention and build huge hype. It worked: Miquela gained so many followers on the day the account was 'hacked' that she passed the million mark. And Brud made headlines in the weeks that followed for raising €6 million from Silicon Valley investors. Apparently there is no such thing as bad publicity, even for avatars. But the most visible effect was on the fashion world, which received a great deal of attention.

Shudu, on the other hand, sparked a different conversation. Her followers really thought she was human, and across social media people doubted that she was the world's first digital supermodel.

She is, in fact, an art project, the work of British photographer James Wilson. He started designing Shudu last year almost by accident, with no particular goal and no idea that he would benefit from whatever came of it. The 28-year-old was looking for a way to spend his free time, something creative, something that would inspire him after work when he got home.

First he tried painting Barbie dolls, joining a group of enthusiast collectors, but he found it all very strange. Calling himself a geek who loves science-fiction films and games, Wilson turned to 3D drawing programs to create clothes and a muse. Inspired by a Barbie called Princess of South Africa, Shudu was born. She is extremely realistic and almost a legacy of the ten years the photographer spent digitally retouching images as part of his job.

In the first photograph Shudu posted on her Instagram account, she is sitting and leaning to one side, looking straight at the camera. "Everyone was asking who that girl was," Wilson says. The intensity with which she hit her growing following caught the creator by surprise, and even more so when the excitement turned to anger.

The accusations grew, more hostile each time, suggesting that Wilson was hiding or refusing to give due credit to a real model. And even so, every question around Shudu was only adding to her popularity. He decided to play along, never confirming or denying who, or what, that woman was.

The demands of creating a model generated solely by computer are immense. Unlike traditional photo shoots, where the inputs come from stylists, art directors, set designers and even make-up teams, here every detail of the avatar is confined to the artist's creativity and skill. "Often I don't know what to do with her," the photographer admits.

Rihanna's make-up and the turning point

All of which is to explain that he gladly took a suggestion from his teenage sister: give Shudu a Fenty makeover, using and tagging products from Rihanna's beauty line. This was a turning point for Wilson and his muse: when people thought she was real, he decided to tell the truth.

Criticism of a Caucasian man creating a Black woman was instant, with accusations of abuse and exploitation. One professor even claimed he had committed a crime of "racial plagiarism". The artist never made money from Shudu, he says, nor was he looking to take work from real models. Shudu is a celebration of diversity in an industry where it is in short supply, he argued. For Wilson to create an image of Shudu takes three full days, plus two weeks of brainstorming and 8 to 10 hours in front of the computer. It is a schedule not unlike that of many fashion campaigns or magazine editorials.

A lack of authenticity?

But the features Wilson spent years removing, such as facial hair, are now the ones he adds almost in a laboratory. "Shudu has made me appreciate our natural imperfections more," he says. These fully digital creations, with deliberate imperfections, speak directly to our desire for some authenticity. While human influencers are "real people trying to keep some kind of fantasy going", Shudu is a "fantasy figure trying to enter reality", the creator explains.

But perhaps the future of social media will not focus on what is real and what is fake, but on what we like. After all, the real crusades against Photoshop happen at the same time as people use filters and countless facial retouching apps. In effect, human beings want the best of both worlds, facts and fantasy, and the most successful influencers will exist somewhere between the two extremes.