If you haven't heard of Lil Miquela already she is an Instagram model.
Her Insta feed is a mix of photos of herself in beautiful clothes, political messaging backing trans and pro-choice causes, pictures with celebrities, friends and occasional pushes to her music, on her YouTube channel.
In every photo, her hair is pinned into the same Princess Leia style buns, her sharp fringe covering half of her forehead, always falling in exactly the same position. She has 1.6 million followers and counting, including Game Of Thrones’ Sophie Turner, Diplo, and Mark Ronson.
The thing that makes this Instagram model stand out from the rest is that she is not real!
Brazilian-American 19-year-old Miquela Sousa is a fictional character cooked up by LA start–up Brud, co–founded by Sara DeCou and ex–DJ and music producer Trevor McFedries (under his moniker Yung Skeeter, he’s worked with the likes of Azealia Banks and Katy Perry).
She first appeared on our screens in April 2016 and avoided addressing the subject of her authenticity for two years until her account was “hacked” by Bermuda, another of Brud’s characters, who demanded Miquela “tell people the truth” about who she was.
A whole bunch of overwrought AI drama (and a pretty savvy PR stunt) worthy of its own soap opera kicked off, culminating in Miquela having a full–blown identity crisis via a series of screen grabs from her Notes app. In one section she told the world what it already knew – “I’m not a human being.”
The outed robot, she had been built by a man named Daniel Cain to be a servant, but was stolen by Brud and “re-programmed” to be “free”. “I’m not a human, but am I still a person?” she mused at one point, before questioning everything she thought she knew.
“I don’t know if I love music. I don’t know if I love my friends. Are these feelings me or just their programming? Is there a difference?”
Lil Miquela's followers don't ssem to mind that she is not real and for now she is continuing to challenge our notions of what an Instagram model/ popstar is.
What are your thoughts on Lil Miquela?
