Advantages:

• Lower costs to manage in clothing, style, and travel expenses.
• Zero possibility of having a personal scandal that could negatively affect companies that hire them.
• Brands and businesses only need to think about coordinating with the A.I.’s marketing team for proposals without worrying about having to please the ambassador themselves.
• Timeless. Being computer-generated, virtual influencers are not affected by the passage of time and are virtually immortal. 

Disadvantages:

• Being practically flawless – don’t age, flawless skin, perfect hair, might lead to unrealistic beauty standards amongst young consumers and instill poor self-esteem.
• There are some expectations over virtual influencers, but at the same time, their perfect image could be their biggest weakness.
• Emotions play a crucial role in influencing the market. Although they can be generated in videos or images showing emotion, virtual influencers cannot bring in a humane touch that real influencers can easily do.

AYAYI: The first metahuman in China

The Beginning Of A New Era

Trevor McFedries and Sara Decou co-founded Brud in 2016 and created the first computer-generated social media influencer, Lil Miquela. One of the first popularized virtual influencers that now boasts over 3 million Instagram followers. Miquela was one of the 25 most influential people on the internet by time in 2018. 

She has collaborated with fashion brands like Calvin Klein and Prada. Lil Miquela has also released various tracks such as “Not Mine” in 2017, while her first music video, “Hard Feelings,” was released in 2021 at Lollapalooza’s online fest. Considering the current blockchain developments, we might not be far from seeing Lil Miquela releasing NFT music. 

Talking about NFTs in general, Brud has actually released an NFT art of Lil Miquela entitled “Rebirth of Venus.” The piece tries to connect the virtual influencer, a machine-made artist in the human world, to Venus, a Roman goddess that walked amongst the humans in mythology. 

Since late October 2021, DapperLabs – the team behind Crypto Kitties, one of the first play-to-earn games that utilized NFTs even before Axie Infinity, has acquired Brud. Working under Dapperlabs, Brud was assigned to head the Dapper Collectives, aiming to take NFTs to the mainstream. 

Aside from Lil Miquela, other virtual influencers have also dabbled onto NFTs. Rae 蕊, another hyper-realistic virtual influencer from Singapore has released a ‘selfie’ NFT series on Mintable called “Take a Byte.”

Kizuna A.I. is one of the earliest known VTuber (virtual YouTuber) dating as far back as 2016. Moving away from the humanoid art style, Kizuna showcases a Japanese ‘anime style’ in her videos and still images. Albeit not directly showing herself, Kizuna A.I. has previously entered OpenSea in her partnership with Metaani to launch an NFT collection. This project now boasts 149 $ETH volume traded, with the trades still being active up to date.

Roselynn – A Hero and Virtual Influencer

Taking importance of this trend, Roseon has also released its own virtual influencer, Roselynn. 

Roselynn, a half-human half-elf, was first introduced as one of the main characters of Roseon’s own metaverse and virtual theme park, WonderLand. She has also appeared as an NFT character in Zombie Warriors and external games like Billionaire Plus.

As a virtual influencer and an NFT character herself, part of Roselynn’s main goal includes educating and sharing insights about NFTs, GameFi, and metaverses.

What exactly is Metaverse?

Think of Metaverse as an internet that you are looking at and living in. Your digital avatar will help you interact with Metaverse.

Instead of watching or reading about a topic, you will be experiencing and doing those actions yourself digitally with other people interested in being part of your experience.

Let’s simplify it further:

Imagine you have been stuck in a lockdown away from your family; how do you stay in touch with them?

Through video calls, that’s the closest you can be today, and it’s not close enough, you know that. You feel left out as your family sits together for a meet or plays a card game.

The Metaverse promises to change that!

In Metaverse, you can meet your family in a virtual space. You can play that game in a digital avatar, make actual movements, and conversations can also happen.

This is what the Metaverse offers.

Experience – more than just sight and sound

Video game giants like Roblox, GTA, Fortnite have had this Metaverse concept for a while now with their own virtual worlds, virtual economies, virtual currencies, storylines, and characters.

The Metaverse may also have some gaming elements, but it will not be a video game. It will be a cyberspace where reality meets imagination. 

The characters will be real human beings, but their world will be entirely fictional, consisting of virtual elements that parallel real life.

According to Mark Zuckerberg, “Metaverse will be a teleportation device where you can explore a virtual world while being physically present at home.”

Will there be one Metaverse or different Metaverses?

Going by the kind of investments being made, it’ll be safe to say that we will be spoilt for choice. There are different virtual worlds in the making, Facebook wants to be the biggest one, but it is not the only one in pursuit.

Many tech-heavy mates are at it.

For instance, Apple is working on an advanced gadget that can revolutionize the Metaverse experience as per the reports.

Google is building its own unique Metaverse.

Microsoft is also in the race and aims to create its digital world, known as “Mesh.” Microsoft will incorporate this virtual experience directly into Microsoft teams.

Disney is also creating a Disney Theme Metaverse; it would extend Disney’s Films and Streaming Service.

Even governments are placing their bets on the Metaverse.

In 2021, the South Korean government announced the creation of a national Metaverse alliance aiming to bring the different virtual worlds into one umbrella.

Barbados is one step ahead and plans to set up its Embassy in the Metaverse.

In the United States, the city of Santa Monica partnered with a Metaverse company to launch a digital version of Santa Monica where users will be rewarded for collecting hidden items located in the virtual city.

Conclusion

Metaverse is not just an experiment by tech geeks. It’s becoming an inevitable alternative to reality. Resisting it or being in denial might be a bad idea.

Metaverse promises to give people a second life of sorts in an online world where they can interact, meet, shop, party, or even build a house if they want to, but it will all be virtual.