The sci-fi dreams are becoming real as people give their love to virtual bloggers, musicians, and influencers rather than to real ones.
Virtual beings are characters or entities that exist only in the digital dimension. They can interact, talk and even make relationships with humans via social media, games, metaverses, and hologram technology. But you’ll never meet a VB in offline life.
The technology
Virtual beings exist as a mix of multiple technological trends, such as VR/AR, artificial intelligence, social media, and gaming. VBs can be based on various technologies, from primitive graphic human-controlled avatars to fully-sentient anthropomorphic AI.
They also rely on aspects of human social psychology, such as parasocial relationships and cultivating idols. There’s usually a large production team behind any VB: human hands are required to create digital appearance and voice, write scripts, and run their social media accounts.
The types
The classification of VBs is very diverse. Here are some most popular VB types and their definitions.
Vinfluencers
Virtual influencers are digital bloggers created with computer graphics, usually with a unique personality and world-transforming ideas. They share their lifestyle on social media (mainly on Instagram), interact with fans, give interviews to glossy magazines and even shoot for brands’ campaigns.
One of the most well-known virtual influencers is Lil Miquela, a 19-year-old robot pop star from Los Angeles. She has modeled for Prada, starred in Calvin Klein ads, gave interviews at Coachella, and topped Spotify charts.
VTubers
Those are digital beings who stream their life on popular video platforms, such as YouTube, Twitch, or Japanese Niconico. Their creators use real-time motion capture technology to manipulate a virtual avatar like it is alive.
Today, there are more than 16,000 VTubers with millions of fans worldwide. Among the most popular VTubers, there are anime-styled Gawr Gura, Nyanners, and Ironmouse, as well as human-like Code Miko and Ai Angelica, to name some.
Vsingers
Music is another promiscuous area for virtual beings, whose works gather a lot of fans on platforms like Spotify and Soundcloud. You may have heard about FN Meka, a virtual rapper who gives concerts on social media while showcasing ultra-rare branded items like Nike’s AR sneakers.
And you probably know about Hatsune Miku, a famous Japanese virtual singer represented by a hologram. In fact, she is a distributed persona: see below.
Distributed Personas
Those are digital characters managed by an open and decentralized community. Fans create music, animations, videos, games, and other content using a certain character like a franchise. And can be rewarded for doing that.
Autonomous Entities
A general class of virtual beings who are instead assistants than pop stars. Those are chatbots, programs, and virtual helpers like Apple’s Siri or Samsung’s Bixby that simulate human intelligence and even emotions. Game NPCs and neural networks are also included in this class.
Why do we love them?
It’s all clear with virtual assistants: they make our life easier and complete basic tasks with just a voice command. But what about virtual celebrities?
Virtual influencers and streamers are designed to be flawless: they love their fans, are always happy and cheerful, and never tire of producing engaging content. VBs are not limited by physical constraints, so they can be in two places at once and satisfy their audience on all platforms simultaneously. An Impossible mission for an average human celebrity.