When it comes to virtual Internet celebrities, Xiaobing and Liu Yexi in China will come to mind… In fact, in Korea, there are Rozy and Lucy. In August 2020, a girl with a good face and a tall figure was born on Instagram, and a photo of skydiving attracted the attention of many netizens.
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Korea’s No. 1 Virtual Artist
She is Rozy, a 22-year-old virtual internet celebrity in South Korea, produced and launched by South Korea’s Sidus Studio X.
Like ordinary young people, Rozy often shares her life on social media. She is full of energy and enjoys fashion, travel and sports.
So far, her fans have exceeded 130,000.
Yet in the 3 months after Rozy was released, no one found out that she was a virtual digital person.
It was not until the end of December, when the studio officially revealed its identity, that Rozy became a hit on the Internet.
Rozy has not only signed many well-known brands to endorse and become the new darling of the advertising industry, but also walked the runway in a virtual fashion show, and even released 2 singles.
Sidus Studio X says on its website, “She can do everything we can’t do in the most human-like way possible.”
That includes making billions of dollars in profits for companies in advertising and entertainment.
The “virtual human” industry is booming, and with it a whole new economy, the digital human of the future will be ageless, scandal-free and flawless.
Baik Seung-yup, CEO of Sidus Studio X, explained how the Rozy image was created.
By collecting the favorite face shapes of the MZ generation, they use CG to model the face and then perform 3D synthesis.
In the creation of Rozy, the studio created more than 800 faces for it, making its faces more realistic and more realistic than other avatars.
At the same time, perfecting the appearance of Rozy was not an easy task, and the entire production process took the team a year.
Since there were not many insiders at the time, face modeling was done by foreign modelers, however, foreign modelers may have a bias in understanding the image of Koreans.
After that, the studio developed skin textures and other looks, made more than 50 blend shapes to create various facial expressions, and animated rigs.
Sometimes the studio superimposes her head on a human model, for example, when she models a costume.
The image of the Korean virtual person Lucy used by Lotte Home Shopping
South Korean retail brand Lotte Home Shopping uses software typically used for video games and has also created its own virtual influencer, Lucy, who has more than 70,000 Instagram followers.
With the fire of Rozy, there has been a virtual Internet celebrity attracting gold fever in South Korea.
At present, Rozy has signed contracts with more than 100 brands, and the annual revenue in 2021 has reached 1.5 billion won (8.031 million yuan).
The virtual era has allowed many Korean companies to see an opportunity and accelerate their march towards “virtual idols”.
When SM Entertainment launched the girl group “aespa”, considering the preferences of young people and the popularity of virtual technology, they launched “virtual clones” of members.
South Korean AI company Pulse 9 will also launch a fully virtual AI girl group “Eternity” in 2021 and debut with the single I’m Real.
What is beauty?
In fact, South Korea is not the only country that has embraced virtual influencers.
For example, Lu of Magalu, created by Brazilian e-commerce company Magalu, has nearly 6 million followers on Instagram; another example, rapper FNMeka, created by music company Factory New, has more than 10 million TikTok followers.
This has already surpassed the number of fans of many real people!
However, Lee Eun-hee, a professor from the Department of Consumer Science at Inha University, believes that the biggest difference between Korean virtual influencers and virtual influencers in other countries is that virtual influencers in other countries often reflect the diversity of ethnic backgrounds and aesthetic ideals. sex.
In South Korea, a country that enjoys the title of “the plastic surgery capital of the world“, words such as fashion and seductive will naturally be associated with it.
However, everything has two sides. On the flip side of the boom, there are also concerns that virtual influencers could further contribute to unrealistic standards of beauty.
Petite figure, big eyes, fair skin, good looks…
These traits are “gifted” to most virtual humans in the country.
Lucy has delicate skin, long shiny hair, and a pure appearance; Rozy, sexy lips, slender legs, and a small waist.
Lee Eun-hee said bluntly: “Virtual influencers like Rozy and Lucy may raise Korea’s already high aesthetic standards and increase women’s demands for plastic surgery.”
However, the creators of Rozy and Lucy reject such criticism.
Lotte representative Lee Bo-hyun said they tried to make Lucy more than just a “pretty” vase by carefully crafting her background and character.
Lucy studied industrial design and worked on automotive design. She posts her work and interests online, such as her love of animals and kimbap.
Lee Bo-hyun also said: “In this way, Lucy strives to bring a good and positive influence to the public, and she is sending a message to the public that she will do what she wants to do according to her own thoughts.”
Baik, CEO of Sidus Studio X, said: “Rozy has freckles on her cheeks, she is not beautiful in the traditional sense. Rozy was created to show people that you can be beautiful even if you are not beautiful. Rozy shows people The importance of inner self-confidence.”
Blueprint
Rakuten hopes that Lucy will move from advertising to entertainment, perhaps by putting her in a TV series.
At the same time, Sidus Studio X also said: Rozy will launch its own cosmetic brand, as well as NFT, the company also hopes to create a virtual pop music trio to challenge the music charts.
“Most fans don’t see idols in person, they just see them on screen,” Baik said. “So there’s not much difference between a virtual person and a real-life celebrity they like.”
In addition, Baik added: “We want to change the way people think about virtual humans. What we’re trying to do is not take away people’s jobs, but do things that humans can’t do, like work 24 hours a day, or walk the skies. middle.”