Rae is the first black digital influencer on Instagram. To me, it was important to define her race, although a fictional being, I thought it might be cool to show how avatar creation is from a different perspective, a black lens. When I was thinking about what to make, I really was interested in creating a virtual influencer, that would be solely on Instagram. My first exposure to this idea was Lil Miquela who is a digital influencer who has over 2.9 million followers. And my 2nd inspo came from a virtual avatar named fn meka who was signed to capitol records back in the summer. This was a problem because the avatar was a caricature of black people, and they used black hairstyles and voices for the rapper. To me, digital avatars are inherently racially ambiguous but take aspects of black culture in their design either through hairstyles, clothing, or facial features. This idea is known as Virtual Blackness
I used Unreal Engine to make Rae, my digital influencer!!
When designing her I was disappointed because of how limiting the hairstyles were, I only had three options cornrow, a short fro, and a big fro. I wasn't that surprised because of playing games in the past and was limited to styling options when creating a character. To me, this showed a lack of inclusivity to black customers and creators and made me question how inclusive epic games truly wanted to be.
