About the Author
This website represents the culmination of my time at the University of Texas at Austin receiving my Masters in Media Studies.
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I first began to take an interest in machine-human interactions and relationships in Dr. Sharon Strover's "Communication, Technology, and Culture" class, where I was first introduced to the digital influencer Lil Miquela. Miquela was the start of my thinking about the ways that we integrate machines and technology into our daily lives. In following this line of enquiry, I found myself contemplating the way that in taking a recuperative stance toward technology, and in looking at our images of machines and tech through a queer lens, can reveal new modes of being in the world. I found myself transfixed by the ways that these creations are frequently the backdrop that allow humans a way to imagine a different world and a different self. More often than not, these imaginings take on a distinctly counter-hegemonic sensibility.
Halfway through “Communication, Technology, and Culture” (Spring 2020), the COVID-19 pandemic forced us into remote online courses. I’m writing this section on the one-year anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring a worldwide pandemic. Since then, I’ve completed the majority of my Masters remotely.
The Desert of the Real
A model of the hyperreal, a hyperreal model
Jean Baudrillard wrote Simulacra and Simulation in 1983, calling into question society’s experience of “the real.” He begins by positioning “the Borges tale where the cartographers of the Empire draw up a map so detailed that it ends up exactly covering the territory…” as an example of a simulation (Baudrillard 2). However, Baudrillard states that simulations like these, that are exact replicas of something real, no longer exist. Simulation now “is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal” (2). To put it simply, he is stating that the simulations we create now are no longer based off of anything concrete or grounded in the “real.” This is what he calls a simulacrum. The simulacrum is a real that has been created without reference or origin. The narrative has shifted from the simulation representing the authentic to attempting to make the authentic conform to the simulation. Baudrillard states that legitimacy is now “a question of substituting signs of the real for the real itself" (ibid). Lastly, Baudrillard argues that this “truth” is “produced from miniaturized units, from matrices, memory banks and command models-and with these it can be reproduced an indefinite number of times" (Ibid).
Examples of Miquela's Transition to Simulacrum
1.
Lil Miquela's first Instagram post.
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("A basic reflection of reality" other examples would include her photos of solely of celebrities/friends)
2.
The first Instagram post that Miquela appears in
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("It masks and perverts a basic reality." Miquela is shown out and about with friends.
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Miquela and Blawko on their way back from Coachella 2018.
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("It masks the absence of a reality." Both people in this image are CGI constructions but they are against a real backdrop, gives the impression they are really there)
4.
Miquela finds out she's a robot and was lied to / created by Brud
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("It bears no relation to any reality whatsoever: it is its own pure simulacrum." Miquela is fully constructed with her own narrative and consequences that are taken as real.)
Lil Miquela is a prime example of a simulacrum in that she is not based on anyone or anything real. I can’t track down and speak to a flesh and blood Miquela Sousa. The real Miquela Sousa is the image I see near daily on my Instagram account. However, the fact that Miquela (re: Brud) has been able to so cohesively and seamlessly construct and integrate Miquela into people’s digital lives is worth investigating. When pictured with human beings like musician Pabllo Vittar, the lines between real and hyperreal are blurred. While Miquela is “a condensed image of both imagination and material reality,” she doesn’t achieve the full potential of Haraway’s cyborg, “a creature of a post-gender world (Haraway 150). Miquela is still ultimately at the mercy of her creators. They’ll never risk Miquela being dropped by the numerous advertising contracts that she holds, the newest of which is with Mini Cooper.
While Miquela’s narrative leaves much to be desired in respects to queerness, Miquela still interferes with normative conceptions of the “real.” In this section, I expand more upon Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation and how it pertains to Lil Miquela. In doing so, I aim to prompt users to think about similarly constructed entities that create a bridge between the real and the simulacra, and how those entities prompt us to think about intersections of capitalism and binaries like man/woman or real/simulated.
Simulacra and Capital
Baudrillard’s verbiage in Simulacra and Simulation immediately lends itself to thinking about simulacra, machines, and capital. The authenticity of Miquela benefits from the fact that the ways we visualize success are already inscribed into our society (14). We understand that designer clothing, the ability to travel, and a wielding of technology, are visual cues that connote (financial) success. Miquela doesn’t have to be successful, she just has to look it, represent it, and in doing so, embody it. She resides on the various social media platforms, but she also depends on users to click through her images and interact with her on these platforms. She engenders engagement, the first step in generating digital capital. At her core, Miquela is an entity of capital. She exists because Brud not only continues to receive money from venture capital firms, but is also able to generate income from users’ interactions with Miquela’s profile and her sponsorships, positioning her as an influencer.
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Throughout Simulacra and Simulation, Baudrillard draws parallels between capitalism and abstracted realities. The ability of capital “to play at deterrence, abstraction, disconnection, [and] deterritorialization” has only been strengthened in the digital age (15). Making money through a digital medium boils down to reach. How many users is an account reaching? How invested are they in the product or influencer? Does the account seem Real? Authentic? While it was long before Web 2.0 came into existence, Baudrillard’s assertion that in the moment that the simulacra seems to be losing its power—that power is regained by playing “at the real,…at crisis, [playing] at remanufacturing artificial, social, economic, and political mistakes" (Ibid.) The hacking of Lil Miquela’s account and the realization of her robotic self is a near perfect sample of Brud "remanufacturing" mishaps in order to invest in Miquela’s narrative and maintain power. At the moment that users were starting to doubt Miquela’s credibility, Brud stripped her down and refashioned her into her “authentic self,” a robot created to look human.
To read more about Simulation and Simulacra in the context of The Matrix click here
Thinking Onward: How is Lil Miquela both "real" and "unreal?" Can you think of any other aspects in our lives that are similar? What does it take for something to be accepted as real in society?
Thoughts on Lil Miquela and whether she is "real" or not? Send a tweet with #QueerHMrelations!