They Have Millions of Instagram Followers, but They’re Not Real People

Each month, more than 80,000 people stream Lil Miquela’s songs on Spotify. She has worked with the Italian fashion label Prada, given interviews from Coachella and flaunted a tattoo designed by an artist who inked Miley Cyrus. Until last year, when her creators orchestrated a publicity stunt to reveal her provenance, many of her fans assumed she was a flesh-and-blood 19-year-old.
But Lil Miquela is made of pixels, and she was designed to attract follows and likes.
 Her success has raised a question for companies hoping to connect with consumers who increasingly spend their leisure time online: Why hire a celebrity, a supermodel or even a social media influencer to market your product when you can create the ideal brand ambassador from scratch?
 That’s what the fashion label Balmain did last year when it commissioned the British artist Cameron-James Wilson to design a “diverse mix” of digital models, including a white woman, a black woman and an Asian woman. Other companies have followed Balmain’s lead.
 Human simulations have existed for years. They have dealt cards in Las Vegas, made music in the band Gorillaz and lived an approximation of real life in the Sims video game.
 But lately they have become more realistic and more engaging.
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