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Comment by Barrin92 | Hacker News Reader

I think vtubers are a counterpoint to that argument. There's a lot of virtual avatar type celebrities on internet platforms in particular and they have had fanbases for a while.

I also don't think people aspire to be like influencers in a 'real' sense. Influencers are hyperreal versions of something fans know they won't actually be, and in that sense artificial characters might even be more interesting.

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Vtubers are a really interesting side phenomenon to this. I think part of the appeal of a vtuber is that it seems more fair and effort-based than an influencer -- as far as I can see, you can become a successful influencer with nothing but a pretty face and maybe some good photography/photo editing skills, but in the vtuber world 99% of your success is just your ability to make entertaining content. There are vtubers with janky homemade live2d rigs that manage to be successful despite that, and there are vtubers with beautiful models commissioned by well-known illustrators that remain fairly obscure because the talent behind them is mediocre.

Yes 'codemiko' looks like a good example of how the future will play out.

I don’t know anything about influencers but why would people want to follow (more than for fun) someone that is AI generated? I mean an INFLUENCEr would be someone I aspire to be like. So if i follow a marathon athlete I’d like to be like her, do the same exercises etc. that would be impossible to mimic with a virtual marathon runner.

Replace marathon with ‘coding’ or whatever hobby you have, and I’m sure you’ll find it weird as well

You're reinterpreting what "influencer" means. An influencer isn't someone who influences you to be like them. That's called "role model". An influencer is someone whose job is to influence your purchasing decisions.

Before it became a career, originally "influencer" was a marketing designation for a person who's well-connected within target market's social graph, and thus is the optimal target to hire or manipulate into peddling crap to their followers.

There's nothing here preventing virtual personas from being influencers too. Being a real person who can be emulated is an asset for an influencer, but it's not a necessity - it doesn't matter why people follow you, it matters that they do, and that they are vulnerable to you manipulating them. Having such a network of vulnerable followers is what makes an influencer valuable to sponsors.

If virtual influencers are travelling and taking pictures of themselves at cool places, you can certainly visit those places too. If they take pictures of food (very influencer-y thing to do), you can visit that restaurant and eat that food.

> I mean an INFLUENCEr would be someone I aspire to be like.

It seems not necessary to be.

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