Interviews
THE CGI PHENOMENON THAT IS MIQUELA SOUSA.
Tess Belgrove
May 18, 2021
Miquela Sousa Aka @miquela on Instagram has over 3 million followers. She is a 19-year-old Brazilian-American model, influencer and music artist. But unlike other influencers Miquela is a computer generated character created by Trevor McFedries and Sara DeCou. At first glance Miquela looks like the typical influencer, taking pictures and videos of her everyday life and modelling the newest fashion by brands such a Supreme, Mulberry and Chanel.
Miquela hangs out with real-life celebrities, musicians, influencers and even has a real life boyfriend. She attends parties, events and fashion shows and dines out in New York’s trendiest restaurants. In photographs she has a shadow and often refers to how she’s feeling and how her days been – All of which is very normal for a real life influencer. But Miquela isn’t and that’s what’s so interesting and unique. Brud the company behind the making of Miquela is a L.A. based start-up of “engineers, storytellers and dreamers” who specialise in artificial intelligence and robotics. Miquela’s account was started in 2016 and naturally began to grow. Most people who came across the profile had their suspicions and doubts whether Miquela was a real person or a robot, this remained a mystery until 2018 when Brud were forced to reveal that Miquela was a CGI robot to the thousands of people following the Instagram account. Despite this, Miquela still has an astonishing 3 million followers and has partnered with luxury brands Prada and Calvin Klein.
Not only does Miquela have a strong Instagram presence she also is an active Twitter and Tumblr user. The creation of Miquela has been groundbreaking adding a new dimension to advertising campaigns. The character has been pictured with numerous celebrities from Millie Bobby Brown to Diplo and has appeared in a Calvin Klein campaign alongside Bella Hadid. She has appeared on the cover of Highsnobiety and has been interviewed by publications such as Vogue, Buzzfeed and the Guardian. Miquela’s profile has claimed that her motivation and narrative is to be a social justice activist and has publicly supported the Black Lives Matter Movement.
Miquela has captured the attention of many people around the world and even has her own storylines created by McFedries and his team. In June 2018, Miquela was named one of Time’s 25 Most Influential People on the Internet.
The future of marketing and social media influencing has been questioned with the rise of digital computer generated avatars such as Lil Miquela and the other virtual influencers created by Brud and other companies that are following in their footsteps. It will be fascinating to see how brands will market their clothing online and if the avatars will dominate social media and the influencing industry in years to come.
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