Ann Friedman - Death of the Artificial Influencer

This is my last week on leave—we'll be back to regular links and other programming starting next Friday! Today, though, we've got one more guest essay. This one is from Mercedes Gonzales-Bazan, who works behind the scenes helping me keep this newsletter running. But she's also one of my favorite thinkers at the intersection of tech and pop culture. In the essay below, she made me wonder: Do robot influencers die, or do they just fade away?

By Mercedes Gonzales-Bazan

Every so often, I awake with a sudden urge to check up on Lil Miquela. If you’re not like me (regularly consuming pop culture like it’s a food group), you might be thinking, “Who?” 

Miquela Sousa, or Lil Miquela online, is the most followed and well-known AI influencer. She was created in 2016 by the Brud media and technology company; I became fearfully fascinated by her in 2018, briefly envious of her in 2019 when she spent an afternoon eating ice cream with Omar Apollo, and shamefully consumed by her content in the spring of 2020 when I conducted academic research on Miquela. She’s existed for almost eight years now, but the everlasting 19-year-old seems to be aging out of relevance.

AI evolves on such a rapid scale that a creation from 2016 is basically the Rosetta Stone. Without the novelty, what is left? Initially, Miquela’s existence focused on blurring the lines between automation and human—and the resulting public confusion grew her following. Until 2021, the Brud website was nothing more than a public Google Doc, where they asked the question, “Is Lil Miquela Real?” and answered with “As real as Rihanna.” Miquela’s unrealness gained her an audience, but she was trying to be “just like other girls.”

Her brand remains a Gen Z caricature of vulnerability, relatability, and authenticity—with enough star power to spend her "free time" with human celebrities—but her openness is a factor in her demise. In 2019 she faced a backlash when she released a vlog revealing her experience as a victim of sexual assault and faced criticism for co-opting true stories from real people. Her kiss with supermodel Bella Hadid for a Calvin Klein ad was intended as a shock-value marker of success and star power, but it became a queerbaiting controversy.

Miquela’s “scandals” kept her audience engaged, though, because they created narratives of imperfection that humanized her. The reaction to Miquela’s actions switched from “How does an AI even do this?” to “Why does she do this?” which shows a certain level of overall acceptance of her existence.

In May 2020, Miquela signed with talent agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA) as its first digital client. But in years since, her engagement has steadily declined. Her Instagram only posts around three times per month, her YouTube hasn’t seen a new video since 2021, and she’s made a total of three TikToks this year. Her most recent project emphasizes her automation instead of the “relatable” narrative—a BMW iX2 ad shows her as “the other” who desires human connection. Miquela’s public image has taken a subtle turn from insisting on her similarities with her audience to highlighting her differences, a necessary shift now that the general feelings toward AI are fear and frustration. Her creators at Brud now label Miquela as a “fictional character.”

The newest faces of AI influencing aren’t AI at all—they're humans playing the part. Last summer one of the most viral TikTokers was Pinkydoll, a human who makes a living by acting as a non-player character, or NPC. She spouts tonally robotic phrases for hours at a time and is paid thousands daily for it. For fans, the thrill of the NPC streamer exists both in her skill of taking on the role and world-building through this format, and also in the humanity of Pinkydoll breaking character. Miquela can’t compete. 

Without Miquela “sharing her life,” her desirability drops significantly and aligns her closer to her fellow AI and less with her human followers. She’s already shown an increase in inter-AI influencer interactions with other Brud originals; there’s more space for her in a completely digital realm than within reality.

She can't even win with star power. There’s been an uptick of celebrities playing AIs for Meta, which means you can chat with digital clones of Kendall Jenner and Snoop Dogg. Now Miquela is up against actual celebrity AIs. In this era of mass AI anxiety, seeing avatars of familiar, famous human faces is more enticing to an audience than any original digital creation.

I don’t see a place in the market where purely AI influencers, especially one as outdated as Miquela, can outdo actual celebrities. The novelty of being an AI with a “real” life is fleeting and the desire for her content dips with every new AI advancement. Miquela’s farewell won’t be a sudden tragedy. It won't look like a million pixels evaporating into the ether. But her presence will dim until she’ll becomes as irrelevant as VHS tapes or LimeWire.

Mercedes Gonzales-Bazan is a writer and researcher and a person who helps keep this newsletter arriving weekly! Check out more of her work here.

Thanks for continuing to read this newsletter even in my absence, and I hope you've enjoyed all of these great guest essays. I'm back—along with the links and pie chart and all of the normal newsletter features—next Friday!