ARTIFICIAL INFLUENCE
Is the Next Biggest Instagrammer Going to Be a Robot?
By Mouminatou Camara Imagery courtesy of Brud
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hen Instagram was created, it was merely a space where people could share, like and comment on photos that their friends posted, but today, the platform is no longer purely social. Teenagers in small towns post side by side with influencers who have created empires of followers. Influencers have played the role of marketers by promoting and recommending products on their social media. According to the State of Influencer Marketing 2018, 86 percent of marketers used social media influencers in 2017, of which 92 percent found it effective. Influencers have become an integral part of any marketing strategy, so much so that in 2018, 39 percent of marketers increased their influencer marketing budget. Influencers range from some of the world’s most famous celebrities to more niche bloggers and vloggers with solid social media followings. However, a new kind of influencer is emerging that may change the social media landscape for good. The black model Shudu Gram, went viral after Fenty reposted a shot of her wearing Rihanna’s bright orange lipstick. Some 159,000 followers later—including supermodels Naomi Campbell and Tyra Banks—Shudu has become the first CGI (computer-generated imagery) supermodel in the world. Created by British photographer, Cameron-James Wilson, Shudu is represented as a dark-skinned, South African woman in her mid-to-late 20s. Her name, which is popular with the Ndebele people of South Africa, was chosen by one of her early Instagram followers from that area. A second CGI model, the Brazilian-
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American fashion blogger Miquela Sousa, who goes by the name of Lil Miquela on Instagram, has achieved even more recognition and was named one of the most influential people on the internet by Time magazine in 2018. The 19-yearold virtual it-girl made her debut on Instagram in April 2016 and since has amassed 1.5 million followers, collaborated with Prada for Milan fashion week, posed in Chanel and even scored herself an editorial in Vogue. Lil Miquela speaks up about topics that she finds important such as the Black Lives Matter movement and LGBTQ rights and has also released two singles that are available for streaming on services like Spotify. A few years after her debut, in April 2018, Lil Miquela revealed through an Instagram post that she was “not a human being,” but a creation of a company called Brud, an LA-based start-up specializing in artificial intelligence and “robotics talent.” This created an online storm after two years of debate in her comments over her true identity. The story told to Lil Miquela’s followers was that a different CGI social media influencer named Bermuda hacked into her account and refused to give it back until she told the truth about her identity. Bermuda, who goes by Bermunaisbae on Instagram, is a creation of a company called Cain Intelligence. Both the account “hack” and Cain Intelligence were staged by Brud to promote their avatar character’s narrative and to attract social media attention. After Lil Miquela admitted to being CGI, she took to Instagram to discuss her emotions, “I’m a robot. It just doesn’t sound right. I feel so human.” The Brud team, which is led by creator Trevor McFedries, released a public statement
