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a16zDigital Humans and the Story Behind Lil Miquela
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EVERY SPOKEN WORD
55 min read · 10,652 words- 0:00 – 1:13
Introduction
- TMTrevor McFedries
I remember we were talking, and she was like, "You keep saying scalable celebrity, but, like, what does that mean? Like, what does that look like?" And I was like-
- SSSteph Smith
You've probably heard of Lil Miquela, also known as Miquela Sousa, a 19-year-old Brazilian-American influencer with millions of followers online. She's partnered with the likes of Samsung and Prada, but she's also not real. You might have also heard of the other digital influencers out there, whether it be Nox Frost, Imma, or even Olympia Hanian's doll, Quay Quay. Well, in today's conversation, we get an inside look into the origin story behind Lil Miquela, a virtual trailblazer created in 2016 by Brud. And we do so with Trevor McFedries and Isaac Bratzel. Trevor was the co-founder and creative genius behind Brud, while Isaac was the Chief Design and Innovation Officer, so he was actually in charge of creating the avatar and running the design and tech teams. So we get to hear firsthand what inspired this experiment, and also what early signs were showing that Miquela was not just a novel idea, but a character that people were really resonating with, even writing fan fiction about. And in an era where it's easier than ever to spin up a character, where does this all go? When an influencer can truly look however you want it to look, how do you decide? How do you create a narrative that
- 1:13 – 2:11
Expanding past Miquela
- SSSteph Smith
resonates? How do you get past the uncanny valley, and what are the ethics of all this? We cover all this and more, and I'm truly so excited to have you listen to this conversation. As a reminder, the content here is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. For more details, please see a16z.com/disclosures. [upbeat music] It's 2016, and I just wanna paint a picture for the listeners. Maybe you guys also need a reminder. 2016 was a very different era. Uh, Britain just voted to leave the EU. Rihanna just released "Work." OpenAI and TikTok were literally just founded, like, their absolute infancy stages. So again, we're in a very different world, and
- 2:11 – 4:09
The key insight
- SSSteph Smith
somehow, Trevor, you had this insight, this inkling, that a virtual influencer like Lil Miquela should be created. So what, what was the key insight at that time?
- TMTrevor McFedries
[laughs] Yeah, it's funny, I think. But the reality was, like, much like you mentioned, we were living in this kind of heightened political moment, like post-Trump, post-Brexit.
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- TMTrevor McFedries
And me just being terminally online, had kind of spent these different evolutions from, like, Web1 to Web2, uh, i- into, like, Web3 or this kind of, like... Or, or the present, and seeing these different media moments and the narratives they could create and, and how that could kind of, like, shape the ideologies and belief systems of young people especially. And, you know, being in the States was hyper-aware of, like, what happened on 4chan and, you know, what was happening-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- TMTrevor McFedries
... on social and meme magic and what it meant to create narratives that could, you know, capture heart and minds and, you know, how effective those could be and the double-edged sword that presented. And, kind of in parallel, I, I'd kind of fallen in love with th- with this, this dataset around a show called Will & Grace that I love.
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- TMTrevor McFedries
That said that, like, Will & Grace was largely responsible for gay marriage in the US, that, like, public polling was tied to the ratings of that show. And so it seemed like there was an emergent new media, um, social, you know, uh, Instagram, like, kind of, like, visual platforms that could be used for telling fictional stories, and that was really the dream. It was like, if you were gonna build a modern Disney or Marvel now, you probably wouldn't wanna start in, in comic books or, or in theaters. You'd wanna start where the eyeballs are, which was, you know, really on social. And so that was the vision.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- TMTrevor McFedries
It was like, can we create Disney on social? Can we tell stories that are as engaging as a Kardashian or a Jake Paul, but kind of imbue th- th- these ideologies that make for a more tolerant, empathetic world?
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah, totally. I mean, I love that you mentioned some of these other characters or influencers that we see in TV shows, for example. I love this idea, Disney for social. Like, people have shown that they have an affinity to not just humans, but characters in TV shows and these illustrated characters. But was there
- 4:09 – 6:45
A new breed of influencers
- SSSteph Smith
some sort of insight that you saw where... To me, I don't know if we saw very many virtual influencers that looked like humans. What was the insight of, like, Lil Miquela is fake, but she also looks super real? She was, like, almost like a new breed, you know what I mean?
- TMTrevor McFedries
Yeah. Uh, I mean, there were, there were, like, zero, uh, and that's largely-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm
- TMTrevor McFedries
... why, like, Isaac is in the picture. I mean, like, no one was doing photorealistic, like, bipedal human characters. There's this-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- TMTrevor McFedries
... concept of the uncanny valley that, you know-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm
- TMTrevor McFedries
... there is this kind of middle ground between what an actual human likes and what, like, a, a, a cartoonish-looking, like, Hello Kitty human looks like, where it looks too human-
- SSSteph Smith
Yes
- TMTrevor McFedries
... but not human enough, and you get freaked out. It's like The Polar Express girl-
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- TMTrevor McFedries
... is often cited in this stuff. But as a result, you didn't really see anyone doing any of that stuff. And, and, you know, there were things happening in Asia. Hatsune Miku, you know, we're standing on the shoulders-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm
- TMTrevor McFedries
... of giants like Miku. But-
- SSSteph Smith
Yes
- TMTrevor McFedries
... we were interested in, I think, doing something, A, on social, and that was already gonna be challenging a lot of norms. Like, there was still this perception that social media was for nonfiction. We'd be telling a fictional-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm
- TMTrevor McFedries
... narrative inside of that space, and then be doing it with, with a character. And if we could minimize a- as much of the, the novelty as possible and keep as much of it familiar as possible, I thought we had a better chance of succeeding. And I thought it would be really easy. I was like, "Yeah, we can just make a virtual human."
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- TMTrevor McFedries
"No big deal." [laughs] And insert six years later, you know, trying to figure it out still. But Isaac really was, like, the, the, the, really the key in getting that figured out.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah. So Isaac, let's hear from you. You get this-
- TMTrevor McFedries
[laughs]
- SSSteph Smith
... this idea from Trevor. You're like, "Okay, let's just make this virtual human," and you have to make this a reality. So I wanna talk to both of you about two things. One, the design, like, all of the decisions that you had to make about exactly what she looked like, and then also the narrative. But Isaac, like, talking about that, that design, and actually making this real, what were your first steps and, like, what are all the little things that maybe sound simplistic, but maybe were actually really hard?
- IBIsaac Bratzel
Yeah, I mean, I think it's always really hard, but I think we got lucky in a lot of ways, um, in terms of Miquela's design. One is we had a CEO in Trevor who actually dove into some of like, he found Daz 3D and these softwares and kinda like started making that design. So when I came in-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm
- IBIsaac Bratzel
... it's really just like taking that, like looking at what's kinda working already, and saying like, "Okay, now let's triple charge that. Let's make this able to be look realistic, let's make it able to be animated and all these other things," right? So-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm
- IBIsaac Bratzel
... I think for us it was a little bit of like having a, a really good sense from, from Trevor and from some of the cultural, uh, savants we had on the Brud team, that really understand internet culture, and kinda like how
- 6:45 – 10:11
Miquela’s aesthetic
- IBIsaac Bratzel
to connect with, with the audience that they were targeting, right? And, uh, you know, luckily we found something that obviously resonated with a whole lot of people.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah. And it, it really did resonate, and I've heard, Trevor, you talk about, again, all of these little decisions that you had to make about exactly what she looked like. I mean, when we're influencers online as ourselves, like, you, you only have the face [laughs] you're born with. But when you're starting new with a virtual influencer, you literally can make that influencer look like anything, and that's like amazing 'cause you have this clean slate, but it also is like, yeah, does she have freckles or not? Like, how long's her hair? What race is she? How old is she? What are her beliefs? And so given, Trevor, you used the term terminally online, and it sounds like you still are. How did you use your, your background, and yeah, I mean, you also worked at Spotify, you've like toured with Katy Perry, like you have this cultural understanding of what people like, and how did that feed into ultimately what you built into this character?
- TMTrevor McFedries
Yeah, it's an interesting question because when you're doing things like this it's so open-ended. I mean, the, the other idea is like Miquela didn't need to be a fixed, uh, aesthetic or character.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- TMTrevor McFedries
It could be this kind of like-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm
- TMTrevor McFedries
... shape-shifter, ever-evolving. Um, you know, in the narrative Miquela's 19 forever. And so there were decisions like I wanted to create constraints, because as a creative person, I like having constraints. I think it kind of like-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- TMTrevor McFedries
... breeds really, like, interesting ideas. But, you know, some of the kinda early things, you know, I had worked in like making music as an artist and as a producer for a very long time, and it was like pretty clear to me that there were these, like, underserved, really passionate audiences i, in Latin America.
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- TMTrevor McFedries
And so, you know, i- if you ever look at some, like, pop star's Instagram, 10% of the comments are, "Come to Brazil, come to Brazil, come to Brazil."
- SSSteph Smith
Oh, really? [laughs]
- TMTrevor McFedries
And so, you know, so in the narrative I definitely wanted to, like, engage, you know, young people, especially people that spoke Portuguese. And so Miquela, uh, you know, was programmed to be, like, half Brazilian, half Spanish, right?
- SSSteph Smith
Mm.
- TMTrevor McFedries
And, like, this idea that we could engage, you know, kids I think were underserved by influencers who, who, who were kind of looking towards Europe, and kind of like Western Europe, Western Europe especially. Beyond that, I think, like, you know, the age thing, I'm a, a big fan of pop culture, and I think generally have kind of seen this motif where people engage with media that it's, like, five to seven years older than them. So, like, you know, Hannah Montana is, is running around high school-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- TMTrevor McFedries
... but it's e- it was like kids that were like middle school and younger watching that program. And so Miquela being 19 was quite intentional, because I really felt like, you know, in a post PG-13 America, like movie ratings really neutered a kind of like middle ground o- of cinema a- a- and television, where you used to have these kind of like John Hughes films, these like coming-of-age tales that really talked about the issues that people were facing, and didn't talk-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm
- TMTrevor McFedries
... down to them. And so one thing we always talked about early on was, like, we wanted to tell stories at, like, eye level. Like, we didn't wanna talk down to kids, we wanted to address them like they were adults, and they had-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- TMTrevor McFedries
... complicated lives, and they have the, you know, they're aware of the turmoils in the world, they're well aware of, like, impending climate change, they're well aware of, like-
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- TMTrevor McFedries
... economic strife, like pandemics.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- TMTrevor McFedries
Like these issues affect everyone. It's, it's not just, you know, cliche Saved by the Bell motifs. Like we can, we can go deeper. And then beyond that, like we just made assumptions about what narratives would work and how we could kind of imbue these ideas o- of tolerance, of, like, otherness, and then you just try things. You know, I think people were probably like, "Wow, how'd you know that she'd be so revered in fashion?" And, like, I had no idea. That didn't-
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- TMTrevor McFedries
You know, we wanted her to look cool, and all of a sudden fashion raised their hand.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah. I mean, I wanna talk about the
- 10:11 – 13:47
Early signs of success
- SSSteph Smith
narrative that you built out, 'cause it seems really critical to the success of Lil Miquela. But also, like you mentioned, y- you were surprised by things. Like what were some of those early signs where you're like, "Oh wow, we've got something here"?
- TMTrevor McFedries
For me, I get kind of like theory brain, and I'm like talking about these, like, concepts and ideas that I'm really excited about, and often they, they don't apply in the real world. But I talk a lot about this idea of, like, parafiction, this idea of like-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm
- TMTrevor McFedries
... telling fictional stories in spaces reserved for nonfiction. And-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm
- TMTrevor McFedries
... the big one being, like, professional wrestling, WWE, whatever it is.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- TMTrevor McFedries
This idea that you're watching people in a ring, where you watch sports take place, boxing, other things, and people are getting hit with chairs, and they're really getting hit, but you're told that it's fake. And, you know-
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs] Yeah
- TMTrevor McFedries
... and like i- in a kind of an infinite scroll world where, you know, nothing makes you take pause-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm
- TMTrevor McFedries
... these things that kind of disrupt these patterns that you're familiar with, like make you pause and like say like, "What's going on?" And so, and so, so much of what we were doing was really trying to v- like create these parafictional moments where you're like, "Wait a minute. Miquela's at Coachella? Is that really Coachella?"
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- TMTrevor McFedries
"Wait a minute, like a brand is talking about her being at Coachella," and that lends-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- TMTrevor McFedries
... credibility to the idea. And so the moments that I think that, you know, for me that jump out obviously was like Shane Dawson. Um, when Shane Dawson made the YouTube video that included Miquela in these conspiracy theories-
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- TMTrevor McFedries
... about what she could be, like that adds this other kind of like meta narrative layer to it, right? That then kind of like-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- TMTrevor McFedries
... compounds, like, the reality of it all. And so that, that stuff was like really special to me, and quite fun and quite cool and... Isaac, do you have memories of things that really jump out?
- IBIsaac Bratzel
Yeah. I, I 100% agree. The Shane Dawson one was really cool, and I think it was any time there was a thing that kinda made it real to me. 'Cause for me, the thing that I was always worried about when I got there was, like, is this just a reactionary thing? Like people see Miquela on, on Instagram, they have a reaction, right? But when you could see fans really engage, and like, so somebody would respond to Miquela, and then there would be a whole bunch of fans that would like come to her defense and, like, explain the whole story-
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- IBIsaac Bratzel
... and that the Shane Dawson video and all, like they had tracked down all this stuff, and you could see how much people really cared and were into it. And, like, there were fans that knew more about the backstory than I did at certain points, where I was like, "Oh man, this is really deep." Um, and then yeah, the, the Coachella moment was huge for me 'cause it was like a tech- technological thing, and I was like, "Well, this is really real." Like, we're not just doing still images in, in magazines and stuff. Like [laughs] we're gonna go in real time and try to interv- interview, like, musicians for Coachella, and like, that was around the same time as the Calvin Klein ad and, and some of this stuff where we're like, "Okay, we're really trying to do something interesting now."
- TMTrevor McFedries
Yeah, like rehashing the trauma of those moments where we're just, like, working around the clock, trying to, like, do things that take, you know, 100-person teams years in just, like, a few weeks or months was totally mental. I remember the Hol- a couple Halloweens where there were all these fans dressed as Miquela, and, and one of the things we talked a lot about when we were designing the character was maintaining this Halloween costume, right? Like, if, if you were gonna be Miquela for Halloween, are there identifiers that people would know who you were? And like, the space buns, the freckles, like, certain things like that were things that we try not to deviate from too much.
- IBIsaac Bratzel
I think that was one of the brilliant insights Trevor had early on is, like, people... Like, recognizable, like, instantly. 'Cause if we change it too much, right, you lose that kind of, like, instant recognizability of Sil Miquela just, like, sticking with the space buns, you know, having the freckles, like, these just really recognizable features. So I think that was really brilliant, honestly.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah, I think I've heard you talk about this, Trevor, but, like, it was this right balance between somebody that almost anyone could resonate with, like people aren't even sure, like, exactly where she's from, but then at the same time, these iconic aspects, where you're like, "Oh, I haven't seen that before." So it's, like, a nice balance
- 13:47 – 17:36
Narrative and fan engagement
- SSSteph Smith
in her look. But you mentioned fan fiction, and it's always fascinating to hear that, like, fans give the character a life of its own. It sounds like this was the case. Tell me more about this narrative that you guys ended up building over years, and also whether any of this fan involvement, did that actually help you guys curve that narrative or adjust that narrative? It seems like it's easier than ever for someone to create one of these virtual influencers, and given that that may be the case, that, like, there's going to be this flood of them, how important is building a narrative in getting this traction, having people really resonate with a character like this?
- TMTrevor McFedries
I mean, it's, it's, it's all extremely hard, but I, I think narrative is, is, you know, like unthinkably hard, right? You know, there's, there's all kinds of books you can read about why you shouldn't build, like, narrative-driven b- media businesses because you, you, you... It's like building a fashion business. Like, you have to keep things interesting forever.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah. [laughs]
- TMTrevor McFedries
Like, you can only keep Lost interesting for so long. [laughs] Like, The Sopranos runs out of steam. Or maybe not, actually.
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- TMTrevor McFedries
Not perfect.
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- TMTrevor McFedries
But I, I think, you know, one of the ways we tried to solve for it or I thought about it was, like, integrating Miquela into the real world. It... Like, oh, this is funny. Like, thinking about a lot of these concepts, but, like, one of the things we had talked about a lot was kind of inverting the traditional media pyramid, where traditionally you kinda started with this, like, longer form asset, like a Star Wars, and then you kinda iterate in, like, a Star Wars video game, comic book, all the way up to, like, a lightsaber you could buy at Target. And so you have this pyramid that moves from, like, big, expensive long form asset into this, like, smaller thing. We wanted to invert that and start with just, like, a character, a still image, and then work up that stack into, like, longer form television and film.
- SSSteph Smith
Right.
- TMTrevor McFedries
And the dream was to actually expand upon that, like, television and film. Like, one of the reasons I love the Kardashians and, like, their narrative universe is that it's infinitely deep, you know? Because they're human beings, you know, you can work through all of, you know, Kim's father, Robert Kardashian's OJ case into, like, his family tree into, like, Armenian conflict-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- TMTrevor McFedries
... and Armenian... Like, you can go as far back as you'd like. And so by integrating Miquela into our world, by having her work for Brud or fire Brud or have, you know, these, like, real world boyfriends and other things-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- TMTrevor McFedries
... like, fans could go super deep, and then they can start to speculate, and they can riff, and they can actually connect dots that we wouldn't see all the times. And so the other part of that was we really tried to build, you know, a, a, a technology organization disguised as a media organization. So we had, like, data science teams every week bringing back what worked and what didn't, building taxonomies on images and videos.
- SSSteph Smith
Wow. Isaac, tell me more about that. You were part of the team that actually helped this come to life. Like, okay, Miquela's apparently now dating this one person. Like, how do we actually execute on that, and should we change it? And I think at one point Miquela was dating a real life person too, right? So there's all these, like, dynamics, and yeah, tell me more about, like, operationally how do you make that happen?
- IBIsaac Bratzel
Yeah, I mean, early days we were really small, and it was crazy fun. We were trying to do things that were just, like, way beyond what a team of that size and [laughs] experience level is, like, you know, sh- should be trying to do. But I do think, you know, to Trevor's earlier point, like, this really quick feedback loop between, like, when you're starting off, you have the ability to, like, do this quick thing and get that reaction immediately, and s- like you said, steer that character and her narrative to the fans that are engaging, right? Which then informs what you're gonna do when you start to do m- more medium and long form stuff. And I thought that was a really cool thing that I learned from Brud is kind of this reverse pyramid that Trevor talks about. It's like if you start with a movie, you're kinda like, "Here's a script. We're gonna take a shot and see if it lands," right? And if everything hits perfectly, then maybe you go from there. But this is almost like let's introduce this character super early in the lowest form possible and see what resonates and what, what hits, and kind of build the story out of the g- the fan engagement, which is just, like, kind of this radical idea. At least it was to me [laughs] at the time. I had n- never really seen that. So using that then to inform the longer form content and kinda, like, having this pretty good idea that, okay, this is gonna work now,
- 17:36 – 23:52
The technology
- IBIsaac Bratzel
so now we can go and try to create, you know, a five-minute music video out of a real time character, which is its own, which is [laughs] ... That was its own whole challenge, so.
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs] I mean, seriously, how do you create that? I, I guess today the technology's getting better, but, like, what are the technologies that are going into creating Lil Miquela and then not just Lil M- Miquela on Instagram, but these music videos? I think she's on Spotify. Like, what technologies are you actually using to accomplish all this?
- IBIsaac Bratzel
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of different ones. I think the, the, the huge, um, I would say an order m- order of magnitude difference between, like, the still images on Instagram and doing actual long form animated content, right? That's stuff that's typically reserved for really high budget films and, you know, triple A video games for, like, a hyperrealistic digital human to be doing that stuff. So that was really challenging. I mean, I think we, we broke a lot of ground there, and the technology was coming along, so we were able to do it somewhat, but, like- We're now in a phase where it's starting to become, I think even referring to this stuff, that it's, it's starting to become more and more realistic for smaller studios to be able to do that. But it was still a blocker, you know. I think what we were really would-- were hoping to do was somewhat blocked by the ability to, like, create really expensive, like, long-form content of animated digital humans that are-- that's really expensive. So we wanna make more characters and create more content and do all these things, um, we ran to, like, you know, you get stuck in a certain platform when you build out this technology piece. Like, it's really hard, you can't have Miquela just go be in a, uh, video game instantly. You can't just, like, go to HBO and Euphoria and be like, "Yeah, sure. Here's Miquela, put her in your film." It's not easy like that. It's expensive and time-consuming. And any time we had those kind of opportunities, we had to weigh the opportunity cost of diverting our whole team towards doing that thing and, like, dropping Miquela's internal narrative, and I think that's, you know, that was kind of one of those big learnings. We were like, "Okay, in order to scale this thing, we really would have to have a big, big investment to, like, get over this bottleneck at this point in time."
- SSSteph Smith
So did you end up getting over that bottleneck? 'Cause I think you did end up launching a few other influencers, Bermuda, Bloco. Like, what was the, the next steps, or how did you decide, "Okay, yes, we are gonna expand this past Miquela. We are gonna take on some of these really cool opportunities and invest in doing these longer form video narratives"? And so, yeah, like, what, what were the next steps past that early traction?
- TMTrevor McFedries
Yeah, it's funny. I'm thinking back to kind of, like, original pitch stuff, and you know, I think initially it wasn't clear to investors, like, how this could be a venture-sized bet. But, like, the bet to me was always like, okay, there's a coming computing shift. I called it spatial computing.
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- TMTrevor McFedries
I guess it's probably best now, like the metaverse or whatever else.
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs] Yeah.
- TMTrevor McFedries
And it, it, it seemed like all of the people that were building for the metaverse were building kind of universes and expecting people just to show up. If you build it, they will come, and I always thought-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm
- TMTrevor McFedries
... that, like, a character would pull you into emergent platform. So, like, you know, Pikachu is the reason you get Pokémon Go. You know, you don't wanna just walk around your yard scanning stuff. You wanna follow Pikachu somewhere. And so, like, if we kind of build the connective tissue between, you know, Web2 and this emergent spatial computing thing, we'd be, we'd be way out in front. And I think looking back on it now, the things we kinda got backwards, or I got backwards, was I was like, "Okay, billions flowing into VR and autonomous vehicles, and we're gonna have this huge shift that's gonna allow, you know, generative media to come really quickly. And then once we can do that really quickly, a lot of value's gonna shift to this, like, spatial computing world, and we'll be able to build digital economies." And I think COVID accelerated digital economies before we actually had the, the, these, these tools to do generative media, like, at the pace we'd like. And so we had to make decisions about where we could be efficient and how we could build models that could port really well, you know. So it's like cheeky things. Like, the-- anyone can kinda do a digital human that looks good in a one still image, but, like, speaking, you know, building really compelling facial rigs that can be driven effectively, super tough. Isaac's really good at it. It's insane. You know, Bloco was like, "What if we just covered his mouth all the time?" You know, it's like simple things like that where he's always wearing a mask, he's always covering his face. It adds a little bit of mystery, adds some narrative, adds a constraint for the creative people, but it allowed us to create stuff pretty, you know, more efficiently. So it's like little things like that. Feet are hard. They often are floating. Let's not show feet.
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- TMTrevor McFedries
You know what I mean? Like, hair is crazy difficult.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- TMTrevor McFedries
So Bloco is bald. You know, Miquela's hair is pretty much fixed except for a couple strategic things that move. Like, let's really limit it, limit things that could cause us a lot of problems, and try to figure it out from there.
- SSSteph Smith
That is fascinating, 'cause, I mean, with just, like, the generative AI stuff today, it's like the, the trope is, like, the hands. You know, everyone's like, "Oh, don't look at the hands. Always hide the hands."
- TMTrevor McFedries
[laughs]
- SSSteph Smith
And so Isaac, are there other things where you're like, yes, uh, there are things that people who have not ventured down this rabbit hole, who have not built this, don't know is actually, like, surprisingly hard?
- IBIsaac Bratzel
Yeah, there's so many things. I think one of the things that any time we're outside of a technology, we have this idea that computers, you could do one plus one equals two, and computers are always gonna do that thing, and there's nothing farther from the truth when you get into this stuff.
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- IBIsaac Bratzel
Everything breaks. Everything crashes.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- IBIsaac Bratzel
This is why, you know, you have big studio models to get, you know, these high-end, like, budgets that just go crazy expensive, because at the end of the day, you have to get it pixel perfect to fit into this film, to fit into this universe, like, exactly right, and it just, the only way to do that is throw time and money and people at the problem. What we were trying to do is, like, the lowest scale possible. We're doing this on social media. We can get to 90% quality, right? People are not gonna care if, like, this one flyaway of her hair is, like, slightly not quite right, right? So we're like, how can we just, like, eliminate 90% of the cost and the time and get 90% of the quality, right? 'Cause it's kind of that power law inverse.
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm.
- IBIsaac Bratzel
But yeah, there's this, it's just so complex and so hard, and even today, I think one of the things we're gonna run into a lot is this idea of, like, oh, anybody can do this now with AI tools and everything else. And to me, it feels a little bit like suggesting that i- because Ableton is, like, $5 now, anybody can go be a superstar musician because they have this, uh, this technology. And, like, technically speaking and, like, having the skill set to do it, it's not true, and then definitely narrative and culturally and having the, like, ability to, like, connect with fans that way, it's definitely not true. You know, the technology piece is gonna be so enabling, and my hope is that it will really help people that have that ability and that desire to connect and tell these stories. I really, like, I resonate so strongly with Trevor's kind of vision of, like, storytelling being transformative, and I think that that's so true and t- today more than ever. I think if we were five years later with Miquela, we would've been able to do things that would've been, like, much bigger and even broader, because I think a lot of the bottlenecks are gonna be removed very soon.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah. I love that you said that, that, you know, the technology is a democratizing
- 23:52 – 27:22
Traction and generative AI
- SSSteph Smith
force, but I can also see how people will look to Lil Miquela and be like, "Oh, I couldn't do this six years ago, but I can do it today." And so on that topic, like, are there any, I guess, any wisdom from your, like, six years of, of doing this and building this and seeing what works, what doesn't work, how much harder it really is to get traction, to get people to care about something, that you would almost, like, tell those people, not so much to drive them away from this idea, but to, to understand ... what it really takes.
- TMTrevor McFedries
There's kind of no easy way to say this, but like if democratizing force and all this technology lowering barriers just means more participants. And so effectively, if you're creating media on TikTok-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- TMTrevor McFedries
... right, like you're not even competing for attention in your, in your following or your social graph. Like, you're competing against the globe. You need to have something more compelling than tens of millions of people that are generating stuff, and so it's super hard. You know, one of the things I try to do is like understand where you have advantages a- and where you have kind of like, where you have an edge. So for us it was music, right? It w- uh, like, you know, maybe a f- 10,000 people are releasing music on Spotify this Friday. Can we be in the top 100? Yeah, I think knowing w- where, where you're, where you're really gifted and where you can out-compete others, 'cause it's, it's hyper-competitive for sure.
- SSSteph Smith
Isaac, on the technology side, I just wanna ask you super quickly, 'cause you're building a company here that enables some of this, right? From my understanding, your company is not taking the like full generative AI approach, right? Where you just like go into something like Midjourney and spin up a net new image. So how are you thinking about that, the different ways these new technologies are coming together?
- IBIsaac Bratzel
Sure, yeah. I mean, I think right now, I think that there's understandably a lot of excitement about Midjourney, and really tools that I call pixel pushing at the end of the day. If you're doing 2D morphing of images, then I feel like if in a more immersive world, so to use the dirty M word, Metaverse, or spatial computing world, whatever you call it.
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- IBIsaac Bratzel
Like that 3D immersive world, when you create 3D avatars or 3D things-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- IBIsaac Bratzel
... and 3D worlds, like they are fully immersive and they have, like they're able to now be interoperable within a, a like more virtual world. And that's what I think is coming, um, not necessarily the Metaverse in terms of like what we might think of it now, but just this-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm
- IBIsaac Bratzel
... this world that's gonna become more and more out of gaming where things are gonna be more three-dimensional. Um, and working in 3D for like a decade, you start to understand like how much we underestimate what another dimension means when you're adding it to something, like especially technological.
- SSSteph Smith
Okay.
- IBIsaac Bratzel
We, we don't think exponentially, we think additively, so we're like, "Oh yeah, you add that, that third dimension," and it's like, yeah, just another layer. And it's not. It's completely a whole order of magnitude shift. I also, I really like what Trevor said earlier, um, about rather than building like this Metaverse worlds and focusing on that, but like focusing on the character and the narrative and having them be the connective tissue. I really view that as one of the ways that really some of this stuff can start to land, which is if we can create like avatars that are scalable, like digital humans and digital people that can actually connect with fans in a real way and have that be the way that ushers them through this kinda more virtual world and create more of a human connective layer, that's what I think would be really, really cool. Because I think a lot of times, you know, if you look at what's going on now with a lot of the virtual world stuff, it just feels very impersonal to me. So I don't think that this is not including some of the generative AI tools. I think it's like the generative AI tools and the stuff you see image-based right now is very, um, two-dimensional, and I don't think that's actually gonna be the solution. I think what it's gonna be is when those tools are able to like really generate and, and include into like a three-dimensional world, which is something that we will be focused on.
- SSSteph Smith
Right. So you're basically saying like a lot of these tools right now are in 2D. You
- 27:22 – 33:39
A new reality
- SSSteph Smith
think that there's so much more fidelity in 3D, but then there's also things on top of that, right, like voice and the ability to animate the 3D character. But I, I guess as we do see more of these virtual characters, these people who are not, as people say, not real people, how do you guys think this actually just changes our relationship with creators, or influencers I should say? Today, most people don't have the incentives to create a virtual influencer of themselves because, you know, again, they, they didn't have access to the technology. It wasn't good enough. But as more of these characters come online, like why would I wanna put myself out there? Because I can be like a more beautiful version, I can change my voice, I can be m- you know, I can, I m- can basically become exactly what I wanna be, and I'm not constrained by like the physical nature of like what I was born with. I also can't be canceled, right? Like there's, there's these dynamics to like, again, like this clean slate. Do you guys see that being the case where with enough time, like that is the reality, where like most things that we see online are not, quote unquote, "real"? And then also, how does that change our relationship with the things that we see online?
- TMTrevor McFedries
I mean, I think we could argue about real and reality, you know, ad infinitum, right? But like we-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- TMTrevor McFedries
... I look at my Instagram feed, and it's a lot of like scripted pranks or things that are, y- you know, led to make people believe that are real. It's, you know, people that have been highly al- altered, it's situation and context that are presented as real, like-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- TMTrevor McFedries
... sitting on a private jet when you don't actually own that jet.
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs] Right.
- TMTrevor McFedries
Okay? Uh, and so I, I think, I think the sliding scale of reality will, will, will probably continue to move in the direction it's been heading in. But beyond that, you know, the thing that I'm most excited about is, is this kind of race to the bottom in a lot of media i- is going to, like, that, that bottom's gonna hit far quicker because of AI. It's gonna be really easy to be good at things.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- TMTrevor McFedries
Good at making music, good at making visual art, good at, you know, creating content. It's gonna be really hard to be excellent, and because, you know, models effectively are, are, are backwards looking, data kind of begets more data. I think you're gonna have some like nasty feedback loops, not entirely dissimilar-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm
- TMTrevor McFedries
... from like what happened to Netflix, where they kinda woke up and one day everyone realized that every show was a chef's table for a different industry. And they're like, "Wait, I like this format, and clearly the algorithm said it works, but I don't feel s- I, I don't feel like I've gained any nutrients from this. I've just kind of been satiated-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- TMTrevor McFedries
... and I'm looking-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm
- TMTrevor McFedries
... for nutrients." And so I think we're gonna have rapid ascent where th- things feel better on the surface. People are gonna start looking for substance, and that's when I think the really special folks are gonna rise to the top that can augment this technology with unique skill sets.
- SSSteph Smith
Do you think that maybe sometimes people misunderstand or misalign substance with what we just talked about, like reality? 'Cause I could see how people w- over time will be like, "Okay, my response to this, everything feels fake. I want, again, like things that are truly in like meat space." [laughs] Um, and that's what they look for. But to your point- Just 'cause it's in meat space doesn't mean it's, like, real and has substance, right? And so it, it can be just as manufactured and less creative than actually something that is technically virtual, but has this, like, dimension to it, has this depth, um, this creativity to it. And so I just wanted to double click on that, that, like, I guess-
- TMTrevor McFedries
No, I mean-
- SSSteph Smith
... that relationship.
- TMTrevor McFedries
Yeah. It's g- it's a question that's, I think, has been imposed for a very long time. I think, you know, even since the emergence of, like, w- contemporary art, right? You have this, you have this constant-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm
- TMTrevor McFedries
... dialogue where it's like Mom and Dad walk into the museum and they're like, "What are these scribbles? A three-year-old could do that." You know what I mean?
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs] Yeah. Yeah.
- TMTrevor McFedries
And then they walk in front of this, like, photo-real landscape painting and they're like, "Now that, that's something I would pay for," because they associate the ability to kind of like take an image from, you know, someone's eye and translate it onto a page with, like, craft and skill. And I think people are constantly doing the same, right? There, there aren't really good ways of understanding what is good and what is bad. It's so subjective, that people are looking for concrete measures of what is good and what is bad, and authenticity is one that's been tossed around quite a bit. And I think people look for things that resonate as authentic, and often associate them with, like, they're playing an instrument, they have a craft. Or they're doing... A- and I think the reality is, some of the most authentic things in the world to me are, like, K-pop, where it's entirely scripted and fictional, but it's presented in a super authentic way, and saying like, "Hey, this is gonna be so entertaining. We've plucked the most beautiful kids from Korean middle schools, give them the best choreographers and the best songs, and have taught them to speak like Justin Timberlake. Like, you're gonna love it." And the, the, the, the, there's no deception there. And I think that, like, young people resonate with that. I think it's harder for adults who have been, who have been kind of primed on these ways of understanding contemporary art. The, a- a- and I think as the technology evolves and ways of kind of like changing those rules evolve, they feel very uncomfortable and fall back on the kind of like frameworks they understand.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah. And actually, these virtual influencers I think are biggest in Korea, um, and parts of Asia, which is interesting. It's, it's maybe a cultural thing, maybe it's an age thing. Um, so yeah, it's, it's fascinating to... I like that you use the word deception, because we're all being deceived in ways in, in terms of what's being put in front of us. But, like, we, we do fall back on these easy mechanics of like, is it real or is it not?
- IBIsaac Bratzel
Yeah, 100%. I think we talked about this the other day as a Brud, of like nobody's gonna, like, see a movie of Mickey Mouse from the early days and be like, "Oh, this isn't real. How dare you guys try to pres- present this as real?"
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- IBIsaac Bratzel
Right? It's, it's too clear.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah.
- IBIsaac Bratzel
And when those lines start to get blurred, at least for those of us who, like, are used to something different, we have a lot of hangups or reactions to things or, like, misunderstandings of what they are. And to me, it, it all comes back to t- storytelling. It comes back to me thinking that storytelling is one of the most important things that we have as humans, and the way we connect with others, and the way that we evolve, um, emotionally and all these other things. I think it's just one of the most unique things about us as animals that differentiates from anything else, right? And I think that enhancing our ability to tell those stories, especially with the, the world that I see coming, right? This more virtual world, this more inclusive, this three-dimensional spatial computing metaverse, whatever you call it. I view having digital humans be able to be able to tell those stories as an essential piece of that, right? And I wanna help make that, like, look a certain way and feel
- 33:39 – 36:40
Early pushback
- IBIsaac Bratzel
a certain way, and allow people to tell stories in this new way. So when you, when you think of it that way, all this other stuff feels like noise, right?
- SSSteph Smith
Well, yeah. I'm actually curious from both of you, over the numerous years you've been doing this, what pushback did you see early on? And also, have you seen any of that pushback change? Like, these ideas around ethics, what's real, what's not, should you be doing this?
- TMTrevor McFedries
I mean, yeah, so many. Th- th- that was part of, like, the, the premise though, is that, like, we were gonna be first to the door and catch all the arrows. Like, we, we were gonna like-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- TMTrevor McFedries
... [laughs] make all the mistakes quite publicly. But I think the really lovely part about that is that we get to kind of, like, set the tone for how these things are understood going forward. Like, it was pretty clear that people were gonna, like, leverage generative media, you know, virtual i- influencer, virtual characters to, you know, shape our reality. It's just like, it, it, it, it's, it's too tempting not to. And so how do we go in and kind of, like, set some boundaries and some, some ways of behaving, such that people follow in our path and kind of make things that are maybe more noble and righteous than other things that could have been done? Um, that said, some really obvious things. I mean, like, I think people were really concerned about virtual characters and people having accounts, right? Like, it seems quite silly now, where they're like, "Wait a minute, how can this, like, fake person have a verified account?" And at, at some point you had to kind of extend that into, like, wait a minute, like, what is Coca-Cola, if not a fiction? And why do they have a blue check mark? There were interesting things in, like, startup land, like what was it? Like, Startup L Jackson, or, like, all these Twitter accounts that were, like, parodies. And so a lot of those things feel quite passe now. There are interesting conversations that I think are happening around AI, NFTs, that feel very familiar to what we did, where it's like, "This is new and scary, and I don't like it, so I'm gonna be upset about it even though I'm, like, uninformed about it." And so I think that's gonna be persistent forever as the Overton window shifts. But a lot of the things that we did feel quite passe right now, where it was like a blue check mark next to your name. Like, yeah, that's fine. That's totally okay. [laughs]
- SSSteph Smith
Trevor, what are some of those examples today, you mentioned, like, AI and NFTs, where you see that parallel? Where back then it seemed strange, this idea of a blue check mark. What do you think, you know, in 5 to 10 years we'll look back on some of the controversy today as-
- TMTrevor McFedries
Well, I mean, I think the idea that, like, digital goods have value, right? Is, I, I can totally understand why it seems silly. The right click save as thing makes a ton of sense, until you think about, okay, if I have a, a wallet in, uh, that, that's following me wherever I go on the internet, and it effectively becomes the way I play status games, you know, it, it may be really important for me to have a digital asset that shows that I was there or I'm a part of this thing, because it leads to IRL love or jobs or wealth or whatever it is. And so I think it's probably gonna be quite silly that we thought for a moment that, like, digital goods wouldn't have value. Much the same way I'm sure it was really silly to see, like, luxury watches sold, where you're like, "What do you mean? That thing does the same thing my watch does. Why would you ever pay a markup for it?" And it's like, well, because I get a, a handshake at the country club that I do- wouldn't get otherwise. You know, beyond that, I think w- with the AI stuff, people Try to dunk on, like, the fingers
- 36:40 – 38:16
Misunderstanding reality
- TMTrevor McFedries
thing or the eyes or, like, the hair looking wonky, and, and I don't think they recognize how quickly those things will get resolved. Much the same way for us early on, you know, they'd be like, "Wait a minute, this shadow's not real. Wait, this isn't real."
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- TMTrevor McFedries
Oftentimes it was, like, and totally real, like [laughs]
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- TMTrevor McFedries
A- and we'd matched it entirely, but they... But, like, al- also, one thing we had to do early on was, like, add additional shadow to things, or things like do things-
- SSSteph Smith
Okay
- TMTrevor McFedries
... to make people believe what they were seeing was real, because the reality of the image wasn't real enough, a- as bizarre-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- TMTrevor McFedries
... as that sounds. You had to kind of like-
- SSSteph Smith
Mm-hmm
- TMTrevor McFedries
... embellish.
- IBIsaac Bratzel
People, like, once you tr- look at an image and you're trying, trying to find what's fake, like, you think everything's fake, right? And how many times the things that people called out were actually a photograph, photographic element. Like, they were real, and people were convinced, like, "Oh, this is the thing that doesn't..." And the Maqu- the things that were CG, they were totally fine with. And, uh, literally, I would say it was, like, 50/50. Like, half the time, they, like, the things they complained about were an actual element that was from a photograph.
- SSSteph Smith
Have you guys started doing that? Like, whenever I see a picture on Twitter, someone will literally be just, like, taking a picture of their lunch or their house, and I'm like, I'm, like, trying to figure out if it's generated by AI. I'm like, "This isn't real," and it's totally a real picture.
- IBIsaac Bratzel
Yeah. I mean, I've been doing that for years as, you know, like, I've, I've been in VFX, right? So CG movies, and like, people always ask me. And I can always tell, because, like, the first thing you're actually doing is, is there any reason for them to use CGI, right? So, like, the first test that I can do that nobody else can do is, like, of course that's not CGI. That would cost, like, 8 million extra dollars, and there's no reason to do it, so there's no chance that it's CGI, right? But then there's a lot of other little tricks, like once you get really familiar with the technology, that you can see that maybe isn't. So one of the things that's actually hard for me is to trying
- 38:16 – 39:40
Fear of new technologies
- IBIsaac Bratzel
to step out of that and understand, like, what is the regular person seeing here? Like, what are the... What is scaring them? Because it looks this way. That's kinda hard to step in and out of. I think the same thing for AI now. I think artists especially have a really strong visceral reaction to it. Art community, 3D art community that's really anti-AI because they're, they have this fearful reaction that, that's happened every time any new technology's ever happened. That doesn't mean that I'm, like, dismissing any of their concerns. It's this fearful reaction that my job's gonna be taken away, or this other thing that I don't like is gonna happen, et cetera. So I think we're seeing that very strongly with AI right now.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah. And, and are you basically saying that you think in years this will not be the case? Like, what do you think happens to, let's just use those, like, 3D animators, for example. Like, what do you think either changes in their perspective or changes about the world?
- IBIsaac Bratzel
Well, I think right now what I'm thinking is that, look, the idea that you're gonna, like, reject this and then it's just gonna stop in its tracks is just the most w- wishful thinking thing I've ever, I could ever imagine, right? So the thing to do is try to, like, identify the parts of it that you don't agree with and try to figure out how can we make that better, right? So if it's rights to artists' images, that they create the artwork, and they should get fractional, like, compensation, or you should be able to, like, opt out of being, having your image displayed. These are all very valid things. So again, I'm not, like, you know, dismissing any of them. It's just that there's a lot of people who are gonna react to this so negatively of just like, "No, no to AI," like, "Cancel all this stuff," and it's like, that's not gonna happen. Even if that was the right move, i- if you, if you were right
- 39:40 – 43:17
New technological unlocks
- IBIsaac Bratzel
about that, it's not a realistic option, so what's the, [laughs] you know, what's the positive thing we can do here to try to make this better?
- SSSteph Smith
Well, on that note of positivity, I mean, the technology's advancing in many different ways, and so I'd love to hear both of your perspectives on how not just AI, but technology advancing as a whole may actually change our ability to create these virtual influencers. For example, might these influencers actually be able to engage with their audiences more? Like, use AI to actually, like, be the one responding. You, like, train an AI model based on this character, and they actually become, like, not a sentient being, but someone that's actually able to engage. That's one example. You could also imagine, like, a decentralized influencer, where basically, like, not only is their worth distributed amongst a bunch of people, but actually, like, what they do, their narrative might be influenced by the people who have some sort of ownership over them. Trevor, why don't we start with you, and just, like, any, any ideas on how technology actually advances, empowers our ability to create these, these characters?
- TMTrevor McFedries
I mean, I could do this for years. We could just riff.
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- TMTrevor McFedries
But I mean, obviously the decentralized one is something that we're, we're, you know, very excited about and, you know, we're trying to-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- TMTrevor McFedries
... build at Dapper. You know, one thing I think about a lot is, like, why culture is not viewed as intellectual property. And, you know, you could almost see influencers as kind of, like, these, like, rent-seeking middlemen that have, like, the aesthetics that allow them to, like, do a dance that was popularized by some six-year-old girl in the hood, and capture a lot of the value-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- TMTrevor McFedries
... that should've flowed back to that person, right? So I think the really challenging part with, like, culture and why it's, it's not intellectual property and why it's often, you know, caught in this crosshairs as being either, like, cultural appropriation or, like, unlicensable. Attribution is really hard, and, like, remitting payments to the people that have, that you've, you've identified as being a, as part of a culture or being owed for that, that, you know, using that representation. Um, and I think, you know, digital payments, like, you know, blockchains, right? And I think that, like, tools that allow you to, like, quickly identify someone and, and, and where they, where they exist culturally. To me, the idea that, like, you know, as a Black person, you could identify a community and say, like, "Look, all of this ratchet happening here has created value that we can, like, repatriate to your community," I think that's really compelling, you know, for generations of people that watched Elvis walk off with shit or The Rolling Stones or whatever else. Like-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah
- TMTrevor McFedries
... it's whatever the TikTok dances and emotes. Like, I would love to see, like, technology enable stuff like that. And so there's all kinds of stuff I could riff about, but, like, things like that to me are, are kind of exciting and maybe on the frontier.
- SSSteph Smith
Totally. Isaac, what about you?
- IBIsaac Bratzel
Yeah. I mean, I think to me the, the... there's three elements that I'm really excited about. One is, uh, and these are all elements that are, like, of the metaverse, to me, what the metaverse really is, and it's persistence, right? So a character, a digital character, which to me is, it's a brand. It's a, it's a- 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 in that one situation, and then that's it. Like, it starts to be able to go in any other medium instantly, right? So this persistence, that, that character actually has a history, a story of life, and that y- that's there. It's synchronous, meaning you can actually interact with it. So that's kind of something you just mentioned there, where maybe you can go and talk to Nathan Drake. That's the simple thing, but I think there's a lot more interesting implementations of that as we move forward. And finally, it's interoperable, and that means, like, these, like, kind of like what I said with persistence, these, these walls that create barriers between different mediums and different things, they kind of go away. Like, technology's an enabler, and, like, a d- democratizing force, and I think what it's gonna allow is for really compelling characters and brands and stories to,
- 43:17 – 47:12
Scalable influencers
- IBIsaac Bratzel
to be able to be told, and really unique in, in, in new ways, that in five years we're gonna look back today and be like, "It seems obvious," but it doesn't feel obvious to a lot of people right now.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah. Something that's coming to mind is, you mentioned synchronicity, but, like, the reason that celebrities can't interface with every one of their fans today is because, like, they are in meat space. Like, they only have so much time. They need to sleep. They can only engage with so many of their fans. But actually, technology can change that, right? And that could be for the human celebrity, who now just, like, has leverage through technology, but it also especially can be used for these virtual influencers, where truly, like, they can have a relationship with their fans. Like, the idea of being parasocial may- maybe doesn't exist at some point, because actually you're not just listening to people talk. You can actually, like, after a podcast, go have this virtual conversation with the podcast host. I don't know if I'm, like, extrapolating too far, but that just, like, dawned on me, where I'm like, oh, actually the limitation existed before because we didn't have technology.
- IBIsaac Bratzel
The first person I heard say, like, trying to, like, make this celebrity scalable, this, like, from Trevor originally, I think we ran into problems with that, uh, with Miquela just 'cause we were so early, right? Like, the expensive cost of creating animated content at this time was, like, that wasn't really scalable. But I think we're getting to a point pretty quickly where it is. Sorry. Go ahead, Trevor.
- TMTrevor McFedries
No, no, it's interesting. I think as, as we kind of thought about, like, that scalability and kind of what makes that experience exciting, you know, like, i- is creating some type of scarcity important for making that thing valuable?
- SSSteph Smith
Hmm. Yeah.
- TMTrevor McFedries
Is, like, to be defined, right? I think the variable rewards component of, of, of, of social, that kind of, like, brain hack, the slot machine brain hack, is what makes a lot of social experiences sticky. And so the idea that you could just, you know, message Emma Chamberlain and she responds right away, or pops up on your screen, might devalue-
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah, true
- TMTrevor McFedries
... you know, what Emma Chamberlain means to you. And this is all stuff that people are gonna have to work through, and so it's gonna be really interesting.
- SSSteph Smith
Maybe an interesting question that I didn't have planned, but since we went down this rabbit hole, do you guys think that at some point we will have a virtual influencer that a religion is built around?
- IBIsaac Bratzel
Yeah.
- SSSteph Smith
[laughs]
- IBIsaac Bratzel
I mean, I never thought about it, but now that you mention it, I'm like, is it possible that with enough time goes by that it's not gonna happen? I don't know. Like, seems like at some point, yeah.
- TMTrevor McFedries
I, I will say, like, problematic part of the pod potentially, but o- our first employee, bro, was a, a woman named Savannah Pacani. And I remember we were talking, and she was like, "You keep saying scalable celebrity, but, like, what does that mean? Like, what does that look like?" And I was like, "Christ." Like, that's what it looks like to me, you know? Like, these narratives that have, like, you know, shaped our reality because this figure has been able to touch people all over the world and, and i- and, and shape the way they behave. Some would argue that there are, you know, people in our current lives, Kardashians, whomever, that have, you know, near, near, like, demigod power, and I, I, I have to imagine that at some point you'll have someone, something that, that matches some of those traditionals.
- SSSteph Smith
Yeah. [laughs] I mean, it's-
- TMTrevor McFedries
Some of the most thrived gods
- SSSteph Smith
... it's kind of mind-bending. No, I mean, you think about, we talked about, like, the sliding spectrums. It's, like, human to virtual or computer-generated, but then it's also, like, yeah, what, what, what is the sliding scale between listening to everything someone says to religion? But Trevor, Isaac, thank you so much for going through all this with us, for being early movers in this space and setting the tone, setting the boundaries, experimenting. Thanks for spending this time with me.
- TMTrevor McFedries
Thank you. [upbeat music]
- SSSteph Smith
Thanks for listening to the a16z Podcast. If you like this episode, don't forget to subscribe here on YouTube to get our exclusive video content. We'll see you next time. [upbeat music]
Episode duration: 47:12
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Transcript of episode RNeb-zFTVAI
