Computer-generated influencer Lil Miquela released a sneaky original song (2019)
Our first entry may not exactly meet a textbook definition of deepfakes, but it nonetheless helps lay the conceptual groundwork for many other examples that would follow it. The song is attributed to Lil Miquela, a first-of-its-kind digitally constructed “influencer” who became a viral sensation in the late 2010s after duping untold numbers of Instagram scrolled into believing it was a real person.
Out of context, Lil Miquela, designed to resemble a half Brazilian half Spanish 19-year-old girl, looks pretty clearly like a CPU wandering around Cyberpunk 2077. However, when smothered in expensive-looking Supreme and Prada clothes and touched up with some filters, the avatar managed to expertly exit in the uncanny valley of the already not-quite real-looking social media patina. Lil Miquela ushered in a wave of other virtual influences and made its developers, a company called Brud, a boatload of moneyin the process.
In 2017, Lil Miquela’s creators took that trickery even further by releasing a lyrics video for an original song called “Not Mine.” The song itself is a 2:42 R&B track with “Miquela’s” pitch-correct vocals layered overtop. It’s unclear whether or not the vocals themselves are computer generated or simply sung by a human but their heavy electronic feel leaves the listener guessing.
