The Metaverse and Persistence

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A character a digital character which to me is it's a brand it's a living story it's persistent. It doesn't exist in one single world anymore right so you don't have Drake from Last of Us existing just in a video game that people are after them and then that's it like it starts to be able to go in any other medium instantly. You can actually interact with it so that's kind of something you just mentioned there where maybe you can go and talk to make a break That's a simple thing but I think there's a lot more interesting implementation, he says.

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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