Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridget Todd,
Speaker 1: and this is there are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 1: Do you need to be a human to be an influencer?
Speaker 1: Or how about a rapper? What about a model? It
Speaker 1: turns out, maybe not entirely. Digital creations are landing brand
Speaker 1: deals and record deals and modeling contracts, and it might
Speaker 1: sound super cool and futuristic, but it's also raising some
Speaker 1: very real questions. So let's get into what's going on
Speaker 1: and talk about some of the history behind virtual talent.
Speaker 1: So last week, Capital Records announced that they signed a
Speaker 1: record deal with a digital rapper called f n Mecca,
Speaker 1: who became the first ever digital artist to sign with
Speaker 1: a major recording label. But the deal also came with
Speaker 1: accusations of digital black based cultural appropriation and the digital
Speaker 1: exploitation of blackness. So just a eleven short days later,
Speaker 1: the deal was terminated and the label said it was
Speaker 1: cutting ties with the rapper because pretty much everybody's reaction
Speaker 1: was like, wait, no, this is bad. So f and
Speaker 1: Mecca was designed to look like a very specific type
Speaker 1: of rapper. He rocks, bright green braids, half of the
Speaker 1: shaved head, face, tattoos, and the gold grill over his teeth,
Speaker 1: kind of like the rapper six nine. He wraps about
Speaker 1: cars and cash and diamonds and expensive watches, another pretty
Speaker 1: stereotypical trappings of rap music. He also uses the N
Speaker 1: word in his wraps, and it's posted content on his
Speaker 1: social media platforms that just did not sit right with
Speaker 1: people because he's not black. I mean, he's not anything.
Speaker 1: He's not a human at all. So, just in case
Speaker 1: it's not clear, fn Mecca is not real. He's an avatar,
Speaker 1: a digital creation of a media company called Factory New,
Speaker 1: started by Anthony Martini and Brandon Lely, neither of hum
Speaker 1: are black. They describe Factory New as a first of
Speaker 1: its kind, next generation of music companies specializing in virtual beings,
Speaker 1: so kind of like a talent agency for digital creations
Speaker 1: and avatars. They've also created a crypto wrapper called little Bitcoin,
Speaker 1: which side note kind of sounds like a project designed
Speaker 1: in a labs specifically for me to hate it. But
Speaker 1: back to Ethan Mecca. While he may not be real,
Speaker 1: he does still have a very real, big digital footprint
Speaker 1: with ten point three million followers on TikTok and two
Speaker 1: and two thousand followers on his verified Instagram account, So
Speaker 1: how did FN come to be well? In interview with
Speaker 1: Music Business Weekly, Anthony Martini, the executive at New Factory,
Speaker 1: explained saying, not to get all philosophical, but what is
Speaker 1: an artist today? Think about the biggest stars in the world,
Speaker 1: how many of them are just vessels for commercial endeavors.
Speaker 1: So what he's basically arguing is that if we mostly
Speaker 1: engaged with artists vias greens, then they don't really need
Speaker 1: to exist outside of those screens to be relevant. He
Speaker 1: also talked about how scouting for fresh, new human talent
Speaker 1: involves a lot of work, scouring the internet for fresh talent,
Speaker 1: flying out to concerts and meetings, and if you just
Speaker 1: create a digital avatar, you cut out all of that work.
Speaker 1: Anthony Martini goes on to explain how their avatar talents
Speaker 1: are made using thousands of data points compiled from video
Speaker 1: games and social media, and that Factory New has developed
Speaker 1: a proprietary AI technology that analyzes certain popular songs and
Speaker 1: generates recommendations for various elements of song construction like lyrical content, chords, melodies, tempo, sounds,
Speaker 1: et cetera. You get the idea. Fan Mecca's debut single
Speaker 1: called Florida Water, features the actual human rapper Gunna and
Speaker 1: human gaming streamer Clicks, but the reaction to fn Mecca
Speaker 1: has been not good, to say the very least, in
Speaker 1: addition to his use of the N word in its songs.
Speaker 1: Because the whole idea is to make it seem like
Speaker 1: Ethn Meca has a real life despite not being a
Speaker 1: real human. They really fleshed out his universe with images
Speaker 1: and videos, including one pretty cringeing image of himself being
Speaker 1: assaulted by a police officer while in prison, posted on
Speaker 1: his Instagram account with the caption police brutality. What should
Speaker 1: I do? Prison guards keep beating me with the baton
Speaker 1: because I won't snitch. I ain't no rat, So I
Speaker 1: have to say. I just do not like this at all.
Speaker 1: It feels like a media venture that is not run
Speaker 1: by black people, capitalizing off of black trauma, black pain,
Speaker 1: and harmful stereotypes about blackness in this really shallow and
Speaker 1: stereotypical way, and it also raises questions about digital black face.
Speaker 1: Digital black face is a term popularized by Lauren Michelle Jackson,
Speaker 1: a feminist scholar and writer in the Departments of English
Speaker 1: and African American Studies at Northwestern University and the author
Speaker 1: of the book on cultural appropriation called White Negroes. She
Speaker 1: describes digital black face as using the relative anonymity of
Speaker 1: online identity to embody blackness. It can be things like
Speaker 1: using reaction gifts of black people on social media if
Speaker 1: you yourself are not black, or in some cases, adopting
Speaker 1: an entire black online persona, like the owners of the
Speaker 1: popular vegan cooking website formally called Thug Kitchen, who built
Speaker 1: an entire successful online brand off of adopting a really
Speaker 1: stereotypical black scent in their recipes before eventually changing the name.
Speaker 1: And I guess that's kind of what doesn't sit right
Speaker 1: with me about this AI rapper. If f N isn't
Speaker 1: a human, why go out of your way to depict
Speaker 1: him in such highly racialized ways. If you're not trying
Speaker 1: to capitalize on a perceived proximity to blackness, it just
Speaker 1: feels really exploitative. Industry blackout, a collective of black people
Speaker 1: in the entertainment industry committed to changing the community, also
Speaker 1: didn't love it. You might recall that we've actually talked
Speaker 1: about industry Blackout once before, during our episode about Blackout
Speaker 1: Day Back Industry. Blackout responded to the news of f
Speaker 1: N being signed to Capital in an open letter, writing,
Speaker 1: while we applaud the innovation in tech that connects listeners
Speaker 1: to music and enhances the experience, we find fault with
Speaker 1: the lack of awareness and how offensive this caricature is.
Speaker 1: It is a direct insult to the Black community and
Speaker 1: our culture. An amalgamation of gross stereotypes, appropriative mannerisms that
Speaker 1: derived from black artists, complete with slurs infused in lyrics.
Speaker 1: This digital effigy is a careless abomination and disrespectful to
Speaker 1: real people who face real consequences in real life. For example, Gonna,
Speaker 1: a black artist who is featured on a song with
Speaker 1: FN Mecca, is currently incarcerated for wrapping the same type
Speaker 1: of lyrics this robot mimics the differences Your artificial rapper
Speaker 1: will not be subject to federal charges for such. For
Speaker 1: your company to approve this shows a serious lack of
Speaker 1: diversity and a resounding amount of tone deaf leadership. This
Speaker 1: is simply unacceptable and will not be tolerated, which prompted
Speaker 1: Capital to respond by cutting ties with FN and releasing
Speaker 1: a statement saying we offer our deepest apologies to the
Speaker 1: black community for incensitivity in signing this project without asking
Speaker 1: enough questions about equity and the creative process behind it.
Speaker 1: We thank those of you who reached out to us
Speaker 1: with constructive feedback on the past couple of days. Your
Speaker 1: input was invaluable as we came to the decision to
Speaker 1: end our association with this project. In response to all this,
Speaker 1: Anthony Martini, the New Factory executive behind FN Mecca, didn't
Speaker 1: interview with The New York Times, and it really just
Speaker 1: made me feel like he did not get it. Initially,
Speaker 1: he told the Times that blogs latched onto a clickbait
Speaker 1: headline and created this narrative, And in response to that
Speaker 1: cringe e photo of FN Mecca being roughed up by police,
Speaker 1: he said, quote some of the early content, now, if
Speaker 1: you take it out of context, it obviously looks worse
Speaker 1: or different than it was intended. And even though in
Speaker 1: that earlier interview that he did with Music Business Weekly
Speaker 1: where he was really hyping that Mecca's lyrics were generated
Speaker 1: using the company's proprietary AI software. In the interview he
Speaker 1: did with The New York Times after the controversy, Anthony
Speaker 1: Martini really walked that back, saying that S and Mecca
Speaker 1: was in fact primarily an anonymous human rapper who was black.
Speaker 1: It's not this malicious plan of white executives. It's literally
Speaker 1: no different from managing a human artist, except its digital,
Speaker 1: he added. He also said that the team behind F
Speaker 1: and Mecca was quote, actually one of the most diverse
Speaker 1: teams you can get. I'm the only white person involved.
Speaker 1: So this explanation was further complicated by the fact that
Speaker 1: the anonymous black rapper that he was talking about F
Speaker 1: and Mecca being based on has actually spoken up and
Speaker 1: said that Martini's company basically just stole his likeness and
Speaker 1: his voice without credit or compensation. Rapper Kyle the Hooligan
Speaker 1: said that New Factory approached him to be the voice
Speaker 1: of F and Mecca in exchange for equity in the
Speaker 1: company and then basically ghosted him, like use my voice,
Speaker 1: use my sound, use the culture, and literally this left
Speaker 1: me high and dry. I didn't get a dime off
Speaker 1: of nothing, and they got record deals all this stuff.
Speaker 1: I wasn't involved in, no meetings or none of that,
Speaker 1: he said. So, after really defending this project to The
Speaker 1: New York Times, Martini must have had a change of heart,
Speaker 1: because just a few days later, he announced that he
Speaker 1: was also cutting ties with the project, writing it's become
Speaker 1: apparent that I should have done more diligence before joining.
Speaker 1: In the past few days, I've learned of Kyle the
Speaker 1: Hooligan's experience with Mecca, which is deeply at odds with
Speaker 1: my core values. I believe that artists must always be
Speaker 1: at the center of the creative process and must be
Speaker 1: fairly compensated. Mecca is not the only digital creation making
Speaker 1: deals despite not even being human. Let's have a quick
Speaker 1: break at her back. Brazilian model and singer Little Michela
Speaker 1: was hired as the arts editor at the Ultra Hip
Speaker 1: Days magazine. She gets sponsored content deals with some of
Speaker 1: the biggest brands and fashion like product and has been
Speaker 1: photographed hanging out with some of the biggest celebrities like
Speaker 1: Tracy Ellis, Ross Diplow and Millie Bobby Brown. She's been
Speaker 1: interviewed by Vogue and The Guardian, and was in a
Speaker 1: Kelvin Klein spread alongside model Bella hadid In. Little Michaela
Speaker 1: was named one of Time magazines twenty five most influential
Speaker 1: people on the Internet, only She's not real. Little Michaela
Speaker 1: is a fictional AI rendering of the perfect instagram It girl. Braud,
Speaker 1: the company behind Michaela, is valued at a hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty five million dollars. Little Michaela is considered the world's
Speaker 1: first virtual influencer. She joined Instagram back in She became
Speaker 1: the first digital avatar to ever sign with a talent
Speaker 1: agency when she inked an tracked with c a A,
Speaker 1: becoming the company's first ever virtual client. So Michaela is
Speaker 1: really interesting. Her features are designed to be non white,
Speaker 1: but they still exist along a pretty conventional Eurocentric beauty standard.
Speaker 1: Like it almost seems like her creators were trying to
Speaker 1: pluck aspects from black, white and Latino women that are
Speaker 1: considered traditionally desirable, and through the power of digital rendering,
Speaker 1: put them all together on one perfect looking person. She
Speaker 1: has edgy street style, a tan complexion of curbacious but
Speaker 1: on upturned nose, and freckles, and it really re establishes
Speaker 1: a well worn beauty standard that would be difficult for
Speaker 1: any human woman to embody, but it's easy for her
Speaker 1: because she isn't real. Little Michaela's whole thing as an
Speaker 1: influencer is being authentic and relatable. She has dramas and
Speaker 1: breakups just like humans doom. She's also really aligned with
Speaker 1: social justice and activism. She's advocated for lgbt Q causes
Speaker 1: and Black lives matter. But in twenty nineteen, the humans
Speaker 1: who control her took it way too far. Michaela released
Speaker 1: a video where she described being assaulted by a man
Speaker 1: in a ride share. She said, sure enough, I feel
Speaker 1: this guy's cold, meaty hand touched my leg as if
Speaker 1: confirming that I'm real. His hand literally lingers there rubbing
Speaker 1: my skin, and people really did not like it. It
Speaker 1: just felt like a profitable media company was both trivializing
Speaker 1: and capitalizing all of assault, a situation that far too
Speaker 1: many of us have actually experienced in real life. Well,
Speaker 1: Michaela isn't real, so her creators dreaming up a sexual
Speaker 1: assault for her to go through just feels kind of gross.
Speaker 1: Or take the black fashion model, shoot you Graham. She
Speaker 1: has a deep, dark complexion and her Instagram posts are
Speaker 1: always hashtag with things like hashtag melanin, hashtag black girl magic.
Speaker 1: Her image was even reposted by Rihanna's Fanti Cosmetics, a
Speaker 1: makeup line known for its inclusive shades for darker complexions.
Speaker 1: Shootings deep dark skin is oh flawless. It seems unreal,
Speaker 1: and that's probably because she's not real. Shooto is considered
Speaker 1: the first digital supermodel, and she was made using a
Speaker 1: digital three D modeling program by a white male fashion
Speaker 1: photographer in London named Cameron James Wilson. In an interview
Speaker 1: with Bizarre, Wilson said that basically, Shooto is my creation.
Speaker 1: She's my art that I'm working on at the moment.
Speaker 1: She's not a real model, unfortunately, but she represents a
Speaker 1: lot of real models today. There's a big kind of
Speaker 1: movement with dark skin models, so she represents them and
Speaker 1: is inspired by them. Wilson maintains that he did not
Speaker 1: have any ill intentions in creating Shoodo, saying it's meant
Speaker 1: to be beautiful art which empowers people. It's not trying
Speaker 1: to take away an opportunity from anyone or replace anyone.
Speaker 1: She's trying to complement those people. And he may very
Speaker 1: well have great intentions, but speaking as a real darkly
Speaker 1: scanned black woman who is a human, it honestly doesn't
Speaker 1: feel great to have someone who wouldn't know anything about
Speaker 1: what that experience is like for us to be capitalizing
Speaker 1: on it. Wilson points out that the digital creations of
Speaker 1: black women that he makes are based on real human
Speaker 1: Black women who might have some level of involvement in
Speaker 1: this project. He's described them as his muses, but being
Speaker 1: a mused does not necessarily mean having a lot of
Speaker 1: agency or say and how this project shows up in
Speaker 1: the world, Like neither Shoe Doo or Wilson as her creator,
Speaker 1: would have any idea what it's actually like to not
Speaker 1: be able to find makeup dark enough for your skin tone.
Speaker 1: And that's because Wilson is a white man, and she
Speaker 1: do doesn't actually have any skin because she's not a
Speaker 1: real person. We humans did not just decide to try
Speaker 1: on our blackness, but the people who make these digital
Speaker 1: avatars did get to decide to create them in this
Speaker 1: way without necessarily having to understand with, or grapple with,
Speaker 1: or even really engage with all of the culture or
Speaker 1: baggage or history that comes along with it. And I
Speaker 1: can absolutely see a world where brands and talent agencies
Speaker 1: with much rather work with a digital avatar meant to
Speaker 1: mimic blackness rather than an actual black human being. Because
Speaker 1: think about it that avatar is never going to call
Speaker 1: them out for saying or doing something insensitive and will
Speaker 1: never express any agency at all because they're not actually real.
Speaker 1: It seems really easy to create an ecosystem where digital
Speaker 1: imitations of blackness become more desirable, not to mention, more
Speaker 1: profitable than the real human thing. Dr Francesca, who researches
Speaker 1: digital media, really summed it up nicely and a piece
Speaker 1: for the Conversation. She writes, many black c g I
Speaker 1: influencers and their origin stories represent pervasive marketplace demand for
Speaker 1: impersonations of black people that center to what maybe warped
Speaker 1: ideas about black life, culture and embodiment. I appreciate the
Speaker 1: work of black people seeking to change the industry, and
Speaker 1: I am interested in how the future of black c
Speaker 1: g I influencers may be shaped by Black people who
Speaker 1: are both creators and muses. And I think that there
Speaker 1: is just really something weird about the fact that Little
Speaker 1: MICHAELA Shoo Doo and fn Mecca get actual deals that
Speaker 1: involve actual human dollars. Companies and brands get to feel
Speaker 1: like they're collaborating with black and brown creators when they
Speaker 1: work with these kinds of digital talents, but really they're not.
Speaker 1: They're just giving money to the companies who create them,
Speaker 1: and it kind of just seems like another opportunity to
Speaker 1: marginalize people who are already marginalized in these spaces. Like
Speaker 1: if brands wanted to work with a queer Brazilian teenager
Speaker 1: like Little Michaela, or a darker skin model like Shooto,
Speaker 1: or a rapper who's been to prison like fn Mecca,
Speaker 1: they could actually book humans with those actual identities or
Speaker 1: lived experiences, not a digital rendering of one. So listen,
Speaker 1: I am fully aware that I probably sound like a
Speaker 1: bit of a curmudgeon here, but that's not it at all. Actually,
Speaker 1: I am very excited about this kind of technology and
Speaker 1: how it might be you and things like media, music,
Speaker 1: and art. There's an entire future of possibility where things
Speaker 1: like AI and avatars blow up boundaries around how we
Speaker 1: think about race, gender, sexuality, ability, and more in really
Speaker 1: interesting and innovative ways. But when you look at a
Speaker 1: project like s and Mecca, it's so clear that that
Speaker 1: same technology could just be used to reinforce and double
Speaker 1: back down on the same harmful, tired stereotypes and tropes
Speaker 1: that we already experience in the real world, which is
Speaker 1: just so sad. With technology, the possibilities are so vast,
Speaker 1: so it's sad to see it be used to reinforce
Speaker 1: the same tired, hurtful sticks. Got a story about an
Speaker 1: interesting thing in tech. I just want to say Hi.
Speaker 1: You can reach us at Hello at tangodi dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangodi
Speaker 1: dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was
Speaker 1: created by me Brigitad. It's a production of iHeart Radio
Speaker 1: and Unboss creative Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer. Terry
Speaker 1: Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almato is
Speaker 1: our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you
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