The Trauma of Being Michaela

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Trevor: I think it was any time there was a thing that kind of made it real to me. There were fans that knew more about the backstory than I did at certain points, but I was like, oh man, it's really deep. And then yeah, the Coachella moment was huge for me because it was like a psychological thing. Like we're not just doing still images in magazines and stuff. We're going to go in real time and try to interview musicians for Coachella. That was around the same time as the Calvin Klein ad. Yeah, like rehashing the trauma of those moments where we're just like working around the clock, trying to

You’ve probably heard of ‘Lil Miquela. The 19 year-old Brazilian-American inﬂuencer has millions of followers and has partnered with the likes of Samsung and Prada. But despite capturing the hearts of many, she’s not real.

But you probably haven’t heard her origin story. In this episode we take a trip back to 2016, to a world that looked much different to today, together with two of Miquela’s creators – Trevor McFedries and Isaac Bratzel – cofounder and Chief Design and Innovation Officer of Brud at the time.

We learn what inspired the experiment and what early signs indicated that Miquela was not just a novel idea. In a world where spinning up an influencer, we learn what it took to capture mindshare, the pushback they’ve received, what a “scalable influencer” means, and what they think is to come.

Resources:

‘Lil Miquela on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lilmiquela/

‘Lil Miquela on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWeHb_SrtJbrT8VD-_QQpRA

Find Trevor on Twitter: https://twitter.com/whatdotcd?lang=en

Find Isaac on Twitter: https://twitter.com/izykbenjamin

Find Brud on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brud.fyi

Isaac’s new avatar company: https://www.avataros.com/

Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction
02:18 - The key insight
04:05 - A new breed of influencers
06:25 - Miquela’s aesthetic
09:30 - Early signs of success
13:01 - Narrative and fan engagement
16:45 - The technology
18:14 - Expanding past Miquela
22:34 - Traction and generative AI
26:45 - A new reality
31:55 - Early pushback
33:38 - Misunderstanding reality
36:23 - Fear of new technologies
37:47 - New technological unlocks
41:13 - Scalable influencers

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