The term influencer as is, has been sketchy from its inception. You’re practically creating a job that’s whole premise is based on ‘influencing’ people into buying products, or following you, or any number of reasons someone would want to ‘influence’ people. But it filled a need, there was a demand for it in the world of social media and internet celebrities. And it’s profitable. And of course, all of this had to be perverted into some way to make for something that I think, really shouldn’t exist.

Robot Influencers.

Or Robfluencers, as I’ve dubbed them at this point. You may be asking, what are robot influencers? They’re basically super realistic digital avatars that are made for social media for one and one purpose only, making money. Well that and gaining followers, but that kind of goes hand in hand. Now before you discredit any of these ideas, think about the social repercussions this could have to us as the human race. Do we even know what is real? The content we ingest on social media, to what extent is it even possible to look the way they look?

Because the facts are that if you hadn’t been told these ‘influencers’ were actually robots (more like 3-D digital animation), would you have been able to tell?

Take Instagram user @lilmiquela for example. They’re literally being portrayed as having been on a flight, when they aren’t even REAL. But that’s the way these kinds of digital avatars prosper. People need to be questioning “Is this person real?” for it to be effective. @lilmiquela has music videos too btw, if that wasn’t enough to convince you that this was crazy. ‘She’ has 1.8 million followers on Instagram alone, and that’s basically on par with many celebrities, YouTubers, and any social media influencers out there.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B7CRyDIH_xu/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

TechCrunch also reported that creators of Lil Miquela Trevor McFedries and Sara DeCou got $125 million from investors. She’s probably the more popular and famous Robfluencer out there, and that’s insane to think of when you see the numbers.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BoB71MiFME8/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Here’s another one, Instagram user @shudu.gram who’s come under the spotlight plenty of times, but not always for the right reasons. Shudu has 196,000 followers on Instagram, and is a 3-D digital animation created by an Englishman named Cameron-James Wilson. And very aptly, he’s described Shudu as “the world’s first digital supermodel.” She’s even collabed with brands like Harper Bazaar, Ellesse, Balmain, and more. That’s big money for ‘fake’ influencers.

New York Post interviewed Wilson, who had declined to share how much Shudu actually makes. But they also spoke to social-media marketing expert Charlie Buffin, who manages both human and digital influencers. He estimates that the bigger Robfluencers make between $10,000 and $15,000 per post, if not more.

If you were curious, that’s similar to real influencers and people with similar number of followers.

If that doesn’t suggest something otherworldly is going on here, I don’t know what’ll convince you. 

Here’s Lil Miquela’s friend, blawko22 who, I’m guessing, is a guy robot influencer. A guyrobencer? 

https://www.instagram.com/p/B2FAtDDlgUd/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

This one has to be the most horrible one I’ve seen thus far. This sh*t don’t even look real. I mean, if you wanted to fool me, at least make it believable.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B0tg6uHhDMk/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

But in reality, all of this makes sense somehow. Why? Because brands want to work with people who aren’t a risk. Someone who won’t cause them problems, and considering these influencers don’t have free will, it’s unlikely they’ll do something to upset big brands. That’s the scary, terrifying reality of it all. The fact that people are easily replaced with something subservient. Wasn’t this the whole problem people had with A.I. and robots in the first place? We’re already living in that reality, and it’s only going to get worse (or better, depending on where you stand on things).

What’s crazy is they’re posing these robfluencers as real people. Doing day to day things, going for lunch, headed to the beach, catching a flight, making music videos. But it’s all fake. What’s the appeal here? Am I the only one concerned on where things are going with this? And what’s even crazier is the fact that some people can’t even tell that they’re fake. They believe these are real people. And that’s the scariest part of all.

It’s been described as “Black Mirror”-ish enough times for me to warrant that example. It boggles the mind that we’re in that reality right now, and that this isn’t a farce setup for our entertainment.

This is real life.