Westworld Meets Our Universe

She has 1.4 million followers on Instagram. Her photos have appeared in Paper Magazine. She models for Prada. Her album on Spotify receives nearly 250-thousand monthly listeners. Accounts have sprung up across Instagram imitating her. YouTuber Shane Dawson has received millions of views creating videos about her.

And she’s not even a real person.

If you haven’t guessed who we’re talking about already—It’s Lil Miquela, the most famous CGI influencer on Instagram who has created a frenzy in the social media world over whether she is a real person. As it has turned out, Miquela is not a real person—surprise! But her influence and presence are as real as the screen you’re reading this on.

The popularity of Lil Miquela has led to the company that created her, BRUD, to introduce a cast of CGI friends to join Lil Miquela in her Insta-perfect world. And independent CGI Instagram accounts are popping up all across the ‘Gram for a piece of the action. Jerks, meet our new CGI friend: Barbados.

“The future of modeling is in an online presentation,” said Barbados, an emerging CGI influencer with close to 1,800 followers. “Actual people/models will no longer be needed. Because it will be possible to create a virtual model. We can precisely customize the virtual person to the target audience.”

Unlike Lil Miquela, Barbados had no issue revealing to us that he is indeed not an actual person. His real name is Martin Brenkus, and he looks about as similar to Barbados as Otto the Orange looks similar to Kylie Jenner. Brenkus lives in Slovakia and works in online marketing. He says creating a photo of Barbados takes roughly 4-5 hours and requires making an entire digital body then editing in the details with photoshop. The scenes are real, but Barbados not so much.

When you look at the photos Brenkus creates of Barbados you can see how some people may find him appealing. With tan skin, sharp cheekbones and a muscular physique, Barbados definitely has all the features of an Instagram baddie, even if he’s a bit airbrushed. And with social media accounts ranging from video gaming to beauty to cats raking in tens of millions of followers, it

makes sense how a Barbados or a Lil Miquela can appeal to a certain type of audience.

And Brenkus is far from the only person outside of BRUD who sees CGI as the future of modeling. If you want to see something that can’t be unseen, go check out the alien CGI modeling account @Akana.Haptu... Needless to say, people are doing all sorts of things with CGI Instagram accounts, but perhaps none more so than the modeling agency Irmaz. Irmaz boasts a portfolio of 12 models and touts itself as: “The world’s FIRST imagined reality modeling agency.”

Started by the partnership of Irma Zucker, an ex-model/dancer, and Phillip Jay, a digital artist, Irmaz sees CGI as an entirely suitable alternative to human models.

“It started with the idea that we already live in a virtual world where what we see and believe isn’t always real. For example, the airbrushed model pics that appear in fashion mags,” Irmaz said in Instagram DMS, “So we thought, why not start out with unreal people? At least we don’t need to airbrush our models, they’re perfect anyway.”

It’s up to you whether you find their models “perfect.” Some of us Jerks found them a little creepy… But the issue isn’t about them being creepy, it’s this eerie idea of perfection which has sprung up the idea of CGI models in the first place. It’s also what makes them so controversial.

Instagram already has issues with making people feel bad about themselves. In a ranking of the effects of social media on mental health, Instagram came up as the worst app for young people’s mental health in a study done by the Royal Society for Public Health. The study notes that Instagram and Snapchat, which came up as the second worst, are both image-focused and appear to be driving feelings of inadequacy.

If people are already feeling inadequate when comparing themselves to real people, how are they supposed to feel when their feed starts filling up with “perfect” CGI models?

“I’m sure people have had plastic surgery over this,” Jennifer Grygiel, a social media and communications professor at the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications said, “We know they’re already adopting (Lil Miquela’s freckled) makeup.”

However, Grygiel sees more issues with CGI influencers than just people comparing themselves to them.

“How (Lil Miquela) came to market was unethical. She didn’t disclose she was an avatar.”

Grygiel is referring to the controversy around Lil Miquela’s refusal to admit she was not a real person. Lil Miquela didn’t admit it until she was outed by another BRUD CGI named Bermuda. And when Lil Miquela did “come-out” she referred to herself as a robot and spoke about being programmed. Grygiel finds this misleading,

“I see marketing here, [but] it’s not what I see as artificial intelligence. The intent is not for her to take-in and process information outside of a human brain. If it is, they need to disclose it. I see a human writing her script.”

We reached out to BRUD about this topic, but they said they are not taking interviews.

If Lil Miquela’s success post “coming-out” is any indication, Grygiel may just be right. “AI is a coy way to make it more flashy. They mask it to make her more intriguing,” Grygiel said.

Part of Lil Miquela’s whole shtick is that she is a “relatable” robot. She makes posts talking about being a Taurus, enjoying In-In-Out and going to the movies. If she’s merely a computer-generated-image, the idea of her having a physical presence would be tarnished. And she would lose even more of the credibility she has established as a genuine robot… AI… computer?

Perhaps though, that’s what should happen. If Lil Miquela isn’t an AI, then she should stop pretending. If her followers still decide they want to follow the fantasy-life of a computer-generated-image, then that can be a choice they’re actively making, rather than being tricked into.

Reality is already distorted on the internet with a constant inundation of fake news, photoshopped pictures and CGI influencers. Let’s at least have the CGI influencers be open about not being robots. That way when the real robot influencers/models come along they don’t have to fight this battle.

Comment below with your thoughts and concerns. Do you think this is the future of modeling?