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.
Unreal But Verified
Lil Miquela and the blue checkmark
Lil Miquela’s persona also invites investigation of what it means to be a person on social media. As Haraway states in “A Cyborg Manifesto”, in the 21st century “the boundary between physical and non-physical is very imprecise for us” (153). While Miquela’s construction itself blurs these boundaries, I also think about how she is represented on Instagram. Miquela, Bermuda, and Blawko all have a blue checkmark next to their usernames. This means they are all Instagram “verified”, assuring us that “Instagram has confirmed that an account is the authentic presence of the public figure, celebrity or global brand it represents.”
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In which category of “public figure,” “celebrity,” or “global brand” does Miquela reside? We know that Miquela cannot run her account on her own volition. Unlike Facebook, Instagram does not require users to participate using their real name (Gillespie 62). The blue verified checkmark is supposed to insulate participants against fraudulent users, especially those that gain a large following. It is in this way that the checkmark used to act as a marker of the user’s physicality. However, with the introduction of global
brands we are beginning to see the integration of corporations and brands as personas in and of themselves (see Wendy’s twitter account for a prime example). The blue checkmark complicates notions of realness on online platforms, as well as highlights the construction of self/celebrity as mediated by online platforms.
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Theorizing Miquela as a posthuman subject continually proves to be difficult due to the complications that arise from Brud. They are the ones controlling her and making decisions, so any aspect she does embody is negated by the fact that it was purposefully added as a tactic to turn a profit.
 Miquela and the Uncanny Valley |
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 Evading a Posthuman Definition |
 Back to Theoretical Concerns |
"The main trouble with cyborgs…is that they are the illegitimate offspring of militarism and patriarch capitalism, not to mention state socialism. But illegitimate offspring are often exceedingly unfaithful to their origins. Their fathers, after all, are inessential"(Haraway 151).