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On Friday night, Hatsune Miku performs songs on her biggest stage yet \u2014 Coachella.<\/p>\n
The turquoise-haired Japanese icon has been touring North America, singing to thousands of fans in large concert venues. She\u2019s inked branding deals over the years with companies including Google . And on Friday, she\u2019s expected to thrill her followers at one of the world\u2019s biggest music festivals \u2014 on the same day as Lana Del Rey and the Deftones.<\/p>\n
But Miku is not human. She\u2019s a totally digital creation, like an online avatar or mascot.<\/p>\n
Her music \u2014 mostly synthesizer-heavy dance pop \u2014 is created from software developed by the Sapporo, Japan-based technology company Crypton Future Media.<\/p>\n
The technology lets people, including fans, type in lyrics and punch in a melody. The program generates a singing voice for the song. Crypton then licenses the songs from the fans for her to sing at concerts. Miku herself is an illustrated character, resembling a 16-year-old girl from an anime or manga. To \u201cperform\u201d onstage, Miku\u2019s image is displayed on a giant screen as a video behind a live band.<\/p>\n
Unlike the \u201chologram\u201d performances of deceased celebrity artists (think Tupac and Roy Orbison) that took the music industry by storm a few years ago, virtual artists aren\u2019t simply re-creations \u2014 they\u2019re avatars performing original music.<\/p>\n
As it would be for a local indie rock artist, landing a spot at Coachella is a significant milestone for Miku. And her human creators. One of the people from Crypton who will be there at Miku\u2019s performance at the festival\u2019s Mojave tent is Riki Tsuji, a member of the company\u2019s global business team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never been to Coachella, so I have no idea what kind of people are going there, what the crowds are gonna be like,\u201d said Tsuji, who is traveling with Miku on tour. \u201cBut we\u2019ll be putting together a show that hopefully they won\u2019t forget.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hatsune Miku is part of an expanding group of digital, non-human performers that are attracting the attention of brands and music fans.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve generated fans from younger generations of audiences that brands are eager to attract and understand \u2014 the kinds of kids who spend two to three hours a day on average on Fortnite and Roblox and are thus comfortable interacting with digital characters and online worlds.<\/p>\n
One non-human digital influencer, named Miquela, boasts 2.6 million followers on Instagram and has done commercials for Calvin Klein and BMW. She\u2019s represented by major Hollywood talent firm Creative Artists Agency, best known for working with A-listers including Brad Pitt and Viola Davis.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a new paradigm in terms of the digital world and the digital landscape,\u201d said Phil Quist, a music and emerging technology agent at CAA. \u201cWhen you think about what that looks like moving forward, those kids are going to be so used to being in those realms that a lot of their entertainment is going to come from that space as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
How much money a nonhuman virtual artist can earn varies widely., Gigs, ranging from social media posts to live performances, can generate up to nearly seven figures, Quist said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt ranges, but it\u2019s very commensurate in terms of the following and engagement,\u201d Quist said. \u201cI think it can be comparable to \u2018traditional talent\u2019 in terms of what those deals look like.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to her Coachella appearance, Miku is putting on a North American tour, which includes 21 concerts in 17 cities. Initially, Miku announced 17 performances , but the tour expanded because of demand, Tsuji said.<\/p>\n
Miku began as a singing voice synthesizer (a.k.a. a \u201cvocaloid\u201d) in 2007. Her voice has been used in more than 100,000 songs.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s very much a vessel for people to kind of express themselves and come together as a community,\u201d Tsuji said. \u201cIt\u2019s not just an artist-listener relationship. Each listener could also be an artist in this community.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the growth of nonhuman influencers comes at a time when actual performers are worried about how digitization and automation through artificial intelligence could impact future work. The cost of creating a digital avatar could become cheaper as technology evolves. Human influencers could find themselves competing for the same brand deals as nonhuman ones.<\/p>\n
The fandom surrounding digital artists can rival that of human musicians. During Austin\u2019s South by Southwest festival in 2022, fans uploaded videos from a concert by digital music artist angelbaby, singing along to the songs.<\/p>\n
Angelbaby, a computer-generated humanoid rapping rabbit, is owned by Hume, an L.A.-based metaverse tech and music company, which is now represented by CAA. Angelbaby\u2019s single, \u201clife is good,\u201d which was released in November, hit more than 4 million streams on Spotify.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, if the music wasn\u2019t good for those artists, people would potentially point fingers and laugh,\u201d Quist said. Looking at angelbaby, \u201cyou could tell that people were so engaged and enamored by the performance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The idea behind angelbaby came from Hume co-founders David Beiner and Jay Stolar. Stolar is a songwriter and producer who has worked with performers including Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato.<\/p>\n
Hume created a backstory for angelbaby, a seven-foot rabbit from the year 3045, who is coping with losing the love of his life. Angelbaby has appeared on recordings with Grammy-winning producer Gino the Ghost and human music artists including boy band Prettymuch. The rabbit\u2019s fans lean male and are in their 20s into their early 30s, Beiner said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think on the emotional level if you do it right, people like to feel like they\u2019re part of a fantasy,\u201d Beiner said. \u201cPeople have always liked to escape.\u201d<\/p>\n
Much of the work for virtual artists comes from partnerships with brands, who want to tap the performers\u2019 younger, digitally savvy followers.<\/p>\n
For example, Miquela \u2014 whose character is a socially conscious digital influencer from Downey \u2014 was featured in a commercial for BMW\u2018s iX2 electric vehicle. The bulk of Miquela\u2019s fans are under 35.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you think about the BMW vehicle that came out that\u2019s 100% electric,\u201d said Ridhima Ahuja Kahn, vice president of business development and strategic initiatives at Dapper Labs, the company behind Miquela. \u201cThat was something that was really compelling to her because it tied in with a lot of her goals around sustainability.\u201d<\/p>\n
But like human influencers, there can also be some controversy surrounding digital ones.<\/p>\n
Miquela\u2019s ad with Calvin Klein showed her kissing model Bella Hadid, which some people online criticized as queer-baiting. Calvin Klein later said, \u201cWe sincerely regret any offense we caused.\u201d Dapper Labs said it stands by the direction of the ad, which was to support all different types of backgrounds, genders and preferences.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith virtual influencers, even they have drama too, just like any real-life influencer,\u201d Ahuja Kahn said.<\/p>\n
Many people worry that digital talent could take away human jobs. Last summer, writers and actors went on strike in part for more protections against the use of artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyone in the entertainment industry at large is very cognizant that a human resource of being on camera or being filmed or even writing a script or even editing a movie is being absorbed by what AI and technology can do,\u201d said Elsa Ramo, a managing partner at Ramo Law PC.<\/p>\n
The OpenAI logo is seen on a mobile phone in front of a computer screen displaying output from ChatGPT.<\/p>\n
But supporters of nonhuman talent say that the work can lead to more innovation, and, ultimately, jobs for the people who build the non-human influencers, although they acknowledge that AI will lead to more efficiency, which in turn will impact other jobs.<\/p>\n
Ilian Gazut created Zlu, a blue alien model represented by management firm IMG Models who has done work for fashion designers like Karl Lagerfeld. Gazut said that Zlu\u2019s movements are based on his movements.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is always a human behind it,\u201d Gazut said. \u201cSo in my case, I didn\u2019t have a job and thanks to him, I have a job.\u201d<\/p>\n
The world of digital, nonhuman influencers continue to evolve. Miquela, who made her first post in 2016, was originally conceived as being perpetually 19, but recently, the character made the jump to her 20s. And prospective schools are noticing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a few colleges who have reached out to us, so she\u2019s looking at those and currently thinking about what the right fit for her would be and if college makes sense,\u201d Ahuja Kahn said. \u201cShe\u2019s been exploring what that path would look like for her.\u201d<\/p>\n
View this article at LA Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hatsune Miku is playing Coachella, but she\u2019s not human. Why brands are working with digital avatars: On Friday night, Hatsune Miku performs songs on her biggest stage yet \u2014 Coachella. The turquoise-haired Japanese icon has been touring North America, singing to thousands of fans in large concert venues. She\u2019s inked branding deals over the years
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