No False Idols
No False Idols
On virtual influencers, minstrelsy, and authenticity.
I write a lot about the reciprocal nature of technology; we influence technology and technology influences us back, two nebulous entities in conversation with each other. Sometimes, this is beautiful; I would never have found an audience if it weren’t for technology, and arguably a lot of LGBTQIA+ people would have never found their community (or themselves) if it weren’t for the series of tubes we call the Internet.
Sometimes, though, it’s incredibly harmful. This is for a variety of reasons, from the ways that platforms encourage us to be angry (since that’s what’s profitable to them) to the limited scope of the discourse that’s even possible to discuss on social media (we can’t have society-shifting conversations in 140 characters). One thing I’ve been thinking about lately a lot is cultural appropriation, which if you need it white-splained to you, is when people adopt the aesthetics and norms of a culture without being of that culture or understanding the meaning behind the creation of those aesthetics (and profiting off of them in the process).
The cultural convergence that we call the Internet is complicated; one one hand, Black queer artists have a larger platform than ever. On the other, most white people don’t have the media literacy or anti-racist background to distinguish “Black culture” from “Internet culture”, so we pick up phrases like “yaas queen” as though they were simply floating in the ether. I myself have definitely been guilty of this; the pipeline of “cool language” usually goes from Black queer people, to Black non-queer people and white queer people (hi), to white women (also hi), to everyone else. It’s even more nefarious when brands, media companies, and artists profit off of Black culture; recently Doja Cat trademarked the phrase “It’s Giving” to start her brand of the same name, and we now live in a time when rich white YouTubers can “rap” (if you can call it that) on top of beats they bought online and pose in front of rented cars, garnering hundreds of millions of views.
This is nothing new for American media; in 1953, Sam Phillips, a recording engineer in Memphis, infamously said “If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a billion dollars!” just months before discovering Elvis Presley, who would go on to make rock & roll music white and relatable. Minstrelsy has always been the foundation of American entertainment, after all. Nowadays, we’ve simply innovated in our methods of exploitation; anybody can become a culture vulture, and sometimes, the Black body being exploited might not even be real.
Enter the virtual influencer. If you weren’t aware, some brands are now opting to use CGI avatars to sell their products. These “influencers” are constructed by teams of people and are often given a rich tapestry of a backstory as a way to mimic the authenticity that human influencers provide.
They make me want to scream.
For one thing, as much as virtual influencers are toted as the “next big thing”, they’re very regressive. It used to be that actors played roles in TV advertisements, sometimes with recurring characters and plots for a given ad campaign (see: the PlayStation commercials with recurring fake Sony employee Kevin Butler). Then with the rise of social media came (human) influencers, who leveraged their authenticity (a sense that the person using this product is “real” and “just like you”) to sell products. Virtual influencers are somewhere in the middle, completely manufactured by media companies but also not necessarily tied down to just one brand. Basically, imagine if the Geico Gecko or the sexy green M&M occasionally popped up in McDonald’s and AXE body spray commercials as well as for their usual brand; that’s a “virtual influencer” for you right there. Yep, SUPER revolutionary, totally the next big thing.
But there’s a bigger issue at play. A cursory look at the biggest virtual influencers reveals that a) nearly all of them are stick-thin, b) many of them are made to look like people of color or at least a racially-ambiguous person, and c) many of them claim to be some kind of “activist”. What this was first brought to my attention in Tiffany Ferg’s video about the subject (I didn’t know they existed before this), thoughts about beauty standards, exploitation, and performative activism rushed into my brain.
Lil Miquela is not a real person. She will never be attacked on the street for holding hands with her female partner. She will never be fired from her job or evicted from her housing for being queer. She will never experience daily harassment and dehumanization for her sexuality, although the team that moderates her TikTok comments section may need to deal with this. What she can do, however, is stoke controversy in order to sell clothes. Truly the epitome of performative queerness and virtue signaling. Performance seems to be the name of the game; simply look at all the virtual influencers with “BLM”, “vegan” (you don’t eat!!!!!!!), and other political labels in their bio. (Is this how conservatives feel when they see pronouns in people’s bios??) I’ll remind you once again that these are brands aligning themselves with the aesthetics of real political movements, without being street activists, in order to sell products.
Race is an important factor as well, such as Shudu, a dark-skinned virtual model…that was created by Cameron James Wilson, a white man, based on “what HE found beautiful” about African women. Big yikes. To be Fair and Balanced™, some (human) Black women are in fact getting paid to work behind-the-scenes on the project, such as Shudu’s IRL body-tracking model, voice actor, and CGI team. But the concept of a dark-skinned Black model with impossible proportions designed for the male gaze doesn’t inspire a lot of hope for this industry. Bermuda was conceived as a pro-Trump “robot supremacist” (and white supremacist) when debuted in 2018. Lil Miquela is an example of a racially-ambiguous virtual influencer, and there’s something to be said about how racial ambiguity is “very in right now” from a beauty-trend perspective. Thanks, colorism! (Although again, her creators are themselves people of color which takes the sting off just a little bit). Nonetheless, all of this raises the question of “why not just pay real-life, human Black & brown people to be your influencers?” There are plenty of real people, who need to eat and pay rent, that would be happy to serve in the roles that these virtual influencers are taking up. (And can I just say, virtual influencers have all of this supposed “diversity” but not a single fat person. Brilliant.)
**content warning for extreme racism here**
Some of these instruments of capitalism also make music, and by that I do mean a team of marketing executives and behind-the-scenes producers make music for them. FN Meka, a virtual rapper and actually the reason I’m writing this piece, is a prime example of why this shouldn’t be a thing. FN Meka was in the news this week for getting dropped from their record label. Essentially it was revealed that the team behind the project was non-Black (and majority-white). Additionally, it came out that Kyle The Hooligan, the Black rapper they collaborated with to be the “voice” of the fake rapper, was done dirty by the team, who never paid him and dropped him from the project after just one song. The team then got a non-Black man to pretend to be FN Meka, a canonically-Black hip-hop artist, for at least one of its songs. The next evolution of digital Blackface is here and it’s incredibly ugly.
Not only was FN Meka an amalgamation of countless anti-Black stereotypes created by non-Black people, and not only did a real-life Black rapper get screwed over by this team, but the virtual rapper has said the N-word and in one Instagram post was depicted being assaulted by a virtual police officer. (For context, all of this was part of a “plot line” on their Instagram feed where FN Meka goes to prison and breaks out; it was all an ad campaign for their music.) I feel like I shouldn’t have to say this, but police brutality is not a plot point for white profiteering, it’s a real thing that happens and it gets Black people killed. Rich, white people have been making a mockery of hip-hop culture for a long time now, but this convergence of racism, capitalism, and technology takes it to an entirely new level.
Perhaps it’s not my place as a white person to speak on this, but I can do my best to echo what others have said and point you, dear reader, in the right direction. Truth In Advertising, a CT-based non-profit devoted to empowering consumers against false and deceptive advertising, has been sounding the alarm about virtual influencers for a while. Jarvis Johnson did a great trilogy of videos, including an interview with Kyle The Hooligan himself, about the fake rapper. Sinead Bovell talked about the ethics of this puppeteering on TikTok and others have compared it to virtual band Gorillaz. Calvin Michaels gave some insightful commentary as well, placing the controversy in the context of a still-racist music industry.
So what can we do? First off, listen to Kyle The Hooligan’s music! He was screwed over but his artistry deserves to be respected. Second, we can be a lot more discerning and critical of systemic racism, queerbaiting, and other forms of digital exploitation. Brands will always prefer virtual influencers (they’re cheaper and can be fully under the brand’s control) as long as they stay controversy-free, so we need to bring the controversy. Capitol Records knew exactly what they’re doing when they signed FN Meka, and it was thanks to social media uproar that the label swiftly dropped them. Finally, don’t lose hope! I’m taking this “cancellation” (can you cancel a person that isn’t real??) as a good sign that people are waking up to the bullshit that is late-stage capitalism.
We’re at a rare time when if we all collectively say “NO” loudly enough, companies might listen. Don’t let companies make this mistake again!
Currently Reading
Re: Hunter Schafer and Transmedicalism. Erin In The Morning once again cut through the discourse and brought systemic issues to the forefront. Cis conservatives are responsible for the current backlash against trans life, not our own community. We will not cancel each other!
A novel way to make cement out of salt, specifically industrial brine. Brine is almost always treated as a waste product, and the energy-intensive process of making cement accounts nearly 7% of all global CO2 emissions globally. Two birds with one stone!
An excellent resource for learning queer history by Lily Alexandre. If you’re still new to queerness/transness, PLEASE look through some of these!!
Watch History
I’ve long been fascinated by the idea that America actually has numerous, well-defined, geographically-bound subcultures. Whenever there’s talk about California or Texas seceding from the Union, I think of what it would be like if we were to break up America into New England, the mid-Atlantic, the Great Lakes Industrial region, etc. It would be an economic and political shitshow, so we probably shouldn’t do it, but the very least it might make sociological sense.
Caitlyn Doughty, the death-positive content creator and funeral home director, make an excellent piece about Goonew, the rapper whose family threw his funeral as a massive tribute concert. Such a great watch!
Bops, Vibes, & Jams
I can already tell that the new Hot Chip album “Freakout/Release” is going to be one of my favorites this year.
Kyle The Hooligan’s new single “Six Speed” is terrific and I am once again reminding you to go listen to him.
And now, your weekly Koko.
That’s all for now! See you next week with more sweet, sweet content.
In solidarity,
-Anna