Virtual creatures start to be everywhere in our environment: major instagram influencers are hired by leading brands that are in fact virtual, virtual news anchor presenters appear. Maybe your next connection on your preferred social network will be virtual? Tough times for starlets, like exposed in this post ‘Brands Are Creating Virtual Influencers, Which Could Make the Kardashians a Thing of the Past‘.
Virtual creatures may look safer and more docile: no risk of personal crisis and unprofessional behaviors outside the screen, and full control of the behavior on screen. They can be made as attractive as needed, and may be fully adapted to the audience – many of those virtual influencers are colored.
At the same time of course we’re losing a certain dose of humanity, making interactions with those influencers and brands even more… virtual and distant from our day-to-day life. Those won’t have the same day-to-day issues and challenges we face as humans. Also, their perfection will look even more unapproachable for us poor imperfect humans.
I believe this trend is here to stay and will even be enhanced further with AI bots coupled with virtual creatures. It will also be harder to distinguish those virtual connections. Another reason to stay grounded in our humanity and being less influenced by the perfect pictures we find of others on social networks!
