Queer relations with technology and machines

This offshoot explores how Miquela Sousa (@lilmiquela), a virtual CGI influencer, operates within the platforms where she resides. I take special care to focus on the affordances granted to her in being able to live online and not have to walk through the world as a flesh and blood person. On her social media, she refers to herself as a robot, yet she is—both physically and narratively—solely the construction of LA-based company Brud. The fact that she is a symbol (or better yet, a simulacrum) of humanity, yet is so uncannily real with a narrative past to accompany her image, creates a tension between her identity and the markers of her humanity. The tension between her status as a machine (her being a robot) and as a quasi-human is amplified when it intersects with the consumerist practices for which she was seemingly created.

 

In addition to my positioning of Miquela as a purely digital simulacrum between the machine and the human, I provide a comprehensive background on Lil Miquela and Brud, the company that created her. In keeping with my theme of a networked site, I hyperlink to pages both inter and intra-textually within this specific offshoot, other parts of my project, and to sites completely outside of this one. These links include salient articles, Instagram posts, videos, etc. 

​​

Through this section of my report, I not only focus on the construction of Lil Miquela for consumerist purposes, but on the fact that her creation is symbolic of the possibility of robots and humans living together. While her life is seemingly anything but, Miquela is representative of a banal relationship between humans and robots. While her desires are mostly those of humans, she doesn’t hide the fact that she isn’t human and none of her friends begrudge her that fact. She’s not intent on taking over the world or eradicating humanity. Instead, it seems like her main desires include making music, going to restaurants, a handful of social justice issues (defunding the police and Black Lives Matter), and hanging out with friends.

​

Like the rest of my project, this section is meant to be interactive and accessible. In an effort to replicate an alternate (and ideally queer) temporal space—a networked one of hyperlinks, videos, and images—there is no correct place to start and no definitive end. It is meant to be explored and navigated in the way that the user sees fit. I have also tried to explain these concepts in a logical and simple way so that one doesn’t need an advanced education to understand them.

​

In thinking about Lil Miquela through a posthumanist and queer framework, my goal is to illustrate the ways that she motions towards key elements of these theories, but is constantly held back by the fact that she was created for integration into a neoliberal market. Where Lil Miquela does excel, is in how she pushes users to think about their own capacity to connect and reside on different technological platforms. She gestures towards a world in which technological creations are eerily human, both in their appearance and behavior. 

​

In doing so, it is my hope that—as someone who interacts with technology daily—users are pushed to think about how Lil Miquela has been constructed for a networked world, and what it means that, not only does she fit in so seamlessly, but that it can be traversed just as seamlessly with her.