Virtual Influenzers: What Dangerous Drawn Models
margarita virova
In early February, Pat McGrath, the most influential makeup artist of modernity, she named the nineteen-year-old girl from Los Angeles Mikuel Saysu (read "mi-uela") as her muse - a good career takeoff for an aspiring instagram blogger. Shortly before this, however, active and modern Mikuela made a coming-out: she is not a living person, but a model created using computer graphics. Now the whole world is talking about virtual influenzers and their prospects in the world of fashion and beauty.
A virtual woman generated with the help of “live” textures outwardly differs little from a real girl that was retouched through - as a result, they begin to play on the same territory, halving the harmful influence
Now Mikuela's instagram has over six hundred thousand subscribers, Internet publications are writing about her, her video is gaining quite real, albeit a modest number of views, and in the description of the profile it is displayed "Black lives matter". Big brands offer her advertising posts, and she has already managed to "withdraw" for the print edition. She writes faceless music - in the generalized spirit of Rihanna and FKA twigs, but the main thing that Mikuela’s project is different about is her resemblance to all influenza fans at once, as if her personality is compiled from the list of the most popular hashtags. At the same time, the account has been active for several years - however, two years ago, subscribers did not admire alien data, but argued whether it was a real girl, too passionate about photo processing, or the product of the creative work of the hot Sims. Then the blogger clearly scared the potential audience - now for CGI-fashionista have come successful times.
A similar story, unwound, however, much faster, happened with the new face of Fenty Beauty: it was the "world's first digital supermodel" Shudu Graham, in general, similar to the ideal exponent of values and concept of the brand Rihanna. The phrase "digital influenza" is firmly stuck in the headlines of articles on the latest marketing methods - and judging by the frequency and intonations of such publications, virtual models will be more and more, and they will advertise more and more actively. While there is nothing fundamentally new in the use of CGI or in the creation of virtual characters, this generation of supermodels from the pen of Photoshop is really scary. And the matter is not in pessimistic reflections on the future in the style of the “Black Mirror”, but in the good old objectification.
It’s not for nothing that everybody likes to blame "crimes against anatomy": advertising photography has long ago reached a special level of existence, where living people are not like ordinary people, but are embodied in the ideals of brands and magazines. Filters and master photoshop often make living women the likeness of an artificially created picture. The traditions of computer images familiar from popular games are also alive: figures break the laws of physics, fantastic proportions of faces are similar to the result of the work of a perfectionist surgeon. Modern computer graphics is quite capable of overcoming the effect of the "ominous valley": the surface of the skin and hair drawn 3D-models look more and more realistic. So, a virtual woman, generated with the help of "live" textures, looks little different from a real girl, passed through retouching - as a result, they begin to play on the same territory, halving the harmful influence.
Let there be no sedition in computer graphics by itself, there is a special cynicism in making money on our complexes with its help: now it will be especially easy to play on female insecurity
While account owners Mikuela remain anonymous, the author of the second character is known - this is the photographer Cameron-James Wilson, who admits that when creating Graham he was guided by the model Dacia Toth, and also Barbie doll in the form of "Princess of South Africa". As part of the art experiment, Shuda looks, perhaps, interesting - but in the context of advertising and popular culture, it becomes another banal fantasy about an ideal woman, and besides, a man’s and with a dubious reference. A collective neurosis on the subject of an unattainable “ideal” is born from an unrealistic representation of the body, and virtual experiments in this sense make it possible to unfold to the full. And let "live models do not go hungry", you still have to suffer, just everything else. The creators of virtual girls do not try to go the way of fantasy, but, on the contrary, dream at least a little, but to deceive their audience - to make them believe in unreal-real instagram stars.
It is not for nothing that Mikuel is branded as an influencer: an influential blogger not only has an effect on her subscribers' sense of beauty, but also makes them buy. The latter is especially important for brands - the virtual fashionista is already sporting Moncler down jackets; Mark did not even have to strain and send a real jacket. And let there be no sedition in computer graphics by itself, there is a special cynicism in making money on our complexes with its help: now it will be especially easy to play on women's insecurity in appearance.
Yes, we are talking about girls. Mikuela has either a boyfriend or a friend named Ronnie Blavko with exactly the same basic data: he is also a product of computer graphics, also a dandy, and also lives on instagram. Only here the number of its subscribers does not reach five thousand, despite regular references in the posts of a friend. It seems that people are simply uninteresting to look at a conditional man, embodying the image of all the fashionable young guys at once, - which means they won’t make any money.
For the time being, general excitement is provoked rather by a novelty of the phenomenon, so it is unlikely that the diligently tailored computer models will soon replace the Hadid sisters. Nevertheless, the game does not look too ethical. In an interview that the digital model gave to The Business of Fashion portal, she appears to be a completely independent person: she tells about plans for the future, does not want people to ask her about ethnicity, and calls herself an artist. Mikuela openly expresses the views and commitment to the fight against injustice, speaking in favor of the rights of minorities. This, however, looks like a tribute to fashion, a simulation of activism that is not fraught with dangers: the blogger cannot be in the position of a real person who signs with a real name. Do we need “bad” activism, when even “good” is not enough? The question is open. Is it ethical to keep assuring women that they are not good enough? Definitely not.