What are Virtual Pop Stars? A Short History of Persona-Based Music Groups and Artists
While virtual celebrity artists like Riot Games' K/DA, Brud's Lil Miquela, or Crypton Future Media's Miku Hatsune reflect 21st century innovation at the intersection of the music and animation industries, the creation of character-centric music groups dates back way further than you may think...
Key insight: What’s old is new when platforms shift. Television created the lives of multiple famous groups, such as The Archies (1958). The rise of the internet and the onset of digital music consumption sparked the growth of The Gorillaz (2000). The rise of vocaloid software and internet forums globally skyrocketed Hatsune Miku (2007).
Today, social media sites like TikTok, streaming destinations like Twitch or YouTube, and video game platforms like ROBLOX spawn new breeds of virtual pop stars faster than a 1950s director ever would have imagined.
In the future, every artist will have a virtual counterpart or an entire virtual identity.
All the best,
Christopher Travers