As the current human civilization, we are still far from realizing our sci-fi fantasy of having our reality translated into a virtual computer program accessible through technology with the capabilities to do that. Technology such as the VirtualReality headset from SonyPlayStation, Social media, Virtual influencers, and Metaverse are signs of progress towards our fantasy of having access to virtual reality tech that offers the complete human experience in 3D pixelated graphics.
In this blog, we will take a brief dive into the world of Virtual Influencers and how they will shape the metaverse. Before we understand what a Virtual influencer is for the context of this topic, we need to understand what a metaverse is.
What Is a Metaverse?
In technological terms, a metaverse is a virtual universe where our physical realities are translated into 3D virtual reality that materially resembles our reality. It’s virtually experiencing our physical realities without the limitations prevalent in our lives. The Metaverse translates our social, professional, and economic lives into a virtual computer program for our use.
At present, we are still far away from having that type of online technology. Several tech companies have taken real-life experiences and translated them into a 3D virtual environment. For example, SonyPlayStation offers a device that lets us play video games and feel like we are physically in the game. The casino games experience we seek at Vegas has been translated into an online virtual ecosystem. Think of the online casino games at Casumo but taken to the next level of immersion.
The fact that we have transformed certain aspects of our reality into a digital environment is good progress towards realizing a metaverse. Technological advancements such as social media, virtual graphic tech such as CGI, and data collection software have created the Virtual Influencer phenomenon, which gives us a glimpse of how we would interact in the Metaverse.
What is a Virtual Influencer?
Virtual Influencers are also referred to as ‘CGI influencers,’ computer-generated fictional characters closely resembling our natural characteristics, features, and personality. Brands use virtual influencer tech as a social media marketing tool to reach a larger audience through existing social media platforms such as Instagram.
It is a virtual identity that usually performs the marketing duties of a human influencer without the marketing limitations and challenges that come with using a real human influencer promotional purpose of a brand. Although a virtual influencer is mostly constrained as a tool for media marketing, the technology used in the virtual influencer world will influence the shape of the metaverse.
How Virtual Influencers Will Shape the Metaverse?
We must understand that the idea of Metaverse does not yet fully exist. We get different virtual platforms that provide pieces that could make up a metaverse. Virtual influencers are just another piece that could make up the whole metaverse. They represent how we would digitally exist in the Metaverse so that our computer-generated character resembles our real physical selves together with our real personalities.
As we know today, virtual influencers are a marketing tool used by corporations or a group of individuals to promote the culture of consumerism in the real world through reaching the millions of real-life audiences available on social media platforms. From a marketing standpoint, the Virtual influencers will shape how we can buy and sell virtual items in the metaverse that are identical to the items found in our physical reality.
The existence of virtual influencers shows that we finally have technology that enables us to create avatars whereby the resemblance to our natural features is uncanny, an important component of a metaverse. It represents how the capability of modern technological advances can translate our real-life personalities through a collaborative visualization system, known as empathy mapping, which becomes the code that will make up the Metaverse.
Virtual influencers also influence the chances of a metaverse existing as envisioned by many of us. In 2018, a virtual Influencer named ‘Lil Miquela’ made it on Time Magazine’s most influential people online. The more people are exposed to the idea of a metaverse, the more we will invest in seeing its existence come to fruition. The reach virtual Influencers have in the social media space, as seen with Lil Miquela, entails that people see the possibility of this idea turning into a sustainable, practical invention capable of bettering how we interact with life.