Welcome to the burgeoning, weird, and ethically murky world of fictional influencers.
The Tuesday edition of The Goods newsletter is all about internet culture, brought to you by senior reporter Rebecca Jennings. ð What's the deal with fictional influencers? ðµï¸ In June, the UK tabloid the Mirror [published a story]( about a TikTok video that discussed âthe four biggest dating app red flags,â according to a creator named @sydneyplus, who said she worked at a dating site. Said red flags include standing in front of a fancy car (likely not their own), describing oneself as an âentrepreneur,â or being weirdly obsessed with their mom. The article is a typical, hastily written web post capitalizing on trending content in order to drive page views, and was later [picked up by the New York Post](. The only problem was that @sydneyplus doesnât work at a dating site, because @sydneyplus doesnât really exist. [Sydney,]( a broke, blonde 20-something who lives on her sisterâs couch and works in customer service at a dating site, is the invention of a team of writers, one actress, and a technology-slash-entertainment-slash-media company called FourFront. Co-founded by a former screenwriter named Ilan Benjamin, the company has so far launched 22 âstories,â or character arcs, eight of them currently ongoing since the spring. Sydneyâs âstory,â for example, was that she found out her sisterâs fiancé was cheating, while [Ollie](, a trans man, discovers that his father also transitioned. âWeâre basically creating an MCU-style universe of characters on TikTok,â says Benjamin. âSome succeed, some fail â itâs the TV pilot season model where we only invest in those that get traction and audiences love.â The company [says it has]( raised $1.5 million in seed funding so far. Last week, Sydney, Ollie, and the rest of the characters â [Tia](, who discovers her boyfriend is African royalty; [Carmen](, a self-described sugar baby and bimbo; [Chris](, a father and army veteran; and [Billy Hundos](, a âfinance fuckboy,â among others â convened IRL in Los Angeles, ostensibly to participate in a contest to win a billion dollars. This also acted as FourFrontâs âbig reveal,â in which the characters hosted a live Zoom event and showed that they all exist within a single universe. In total, the characters have a combined 1.9 million followers and 281 million views. Fictional influencers are not unique to the TikTok era. In June of 2006, a soft-spoken 16-year-old named Bree began uploading video confessionals to YouTube under the username Lonelygirl15. Bree, however, was [actually the invention]( of screenwriters Miles Beckett and Mesh Flinders, along with their lawyer-producer friend Greg Goodfried. (Interestingly, Goodfried is now the president of DâAmelio Family Enterprises, the company representing TikTokers Charli and Dixie DâAmelio.) Within months, millions of people tuned in, many turning to message boards to speculate about what was going on behind the scenes, and [by September, sleuths]( had found trademark applications and pictures of the actress Jessica Rose, who played Bree. Some fans said they were âheartbrokenâ by the discovery, but it went on to air for another two years. Asked whether something like Lonelygirl15 could exist today, Flinders told the Guardian, âOn YouTube now we wouldnât get away with this for 30 seconds. People would know sheâs fake immediately.â But perhaps thatâs less true for TikTok. While FourFront is adamant that most of its audience is aware that what theyâre watching is the work of actors and writers, thatâs nearly impossible to know for certain. âWith everything that happened with QAnon and how alternate reality games have been weaponized, itâs important that we made our universe light and playful â no cult content, no dark content, and every one of our characters is openly fictional,â Benjamin says. Yet nearly all of the comments appear to engage with the characters just like they would with real TikTokers, giving advice and sharing reactions or their own experiences. Though FourFront has started using the hashtag #fictional on its videos and the word âfictionalâ in the characterâs bios, to expect users who come across one of their videos on their For You page to put the clues together is asking quite a lot, considering most TikTokers use unrelated hashtags in their posts to gain more traction and choose intentionally weird bios to set themselves apart. As a commercial rather than purely artistic venture, FourFront [told Fast Company]( that its long-term revenue plan is to license their AI character voices to other companies, and to make money with some kind of subscription model or by selling tickets to live events starring their characters. âWhy canât I hang out with Harry Potter?â he said. âThatâs the question this whole company began with: Why canât we allow people to get closer to their favorite characters?â The company also encourages their most invested followers to text their favorite characters on a separate messaging app and âunlock secrets,â using the AI language GPT-3 to respond. With an earlier character Paige, whose story concept was âall my friends blocked me,â Benjamin says that when they told audiences at the beginning of the messaging session that it was a fictional story, 89 percent wanted to continue and 42 percent âshared really intimate emotional data with the character.â (Benjamin says they do not plan to sell that data, but instead use it to improve their own storytelling.) Those characters, by the way, are conceptualized and written by Benjamin and a team of writers, mostly recent grads from USCâs screenwriting program. Ollieâs bio describes him as âmade with love by (rainbow flag emoji) actors and creators,â while Chrisâs says âmade by veteran actors and creators.â Actors, who film and direct themselves and then send footage to an editor, also contribute to the storylines. Cameisha Cotton, who plays Tia, says the idea was pitched to her agent in February as a web series and that sheâd done augmented reality projects before. âTheyâre incredibly collaborative,â she says. âItâs the coolest SAG project Iâve ever been able to be a part of.â FourFront is part of a larger wave of tech startups devoted to, as aspiring Zuckerbergs like to say, building the metaverse, which can loosely be defined as âthe internetâ but is more specifically the interconnected, augmented-reality virtual space that real people share. Itâs an undoubtedly intriguing concept for people with a stake in the future of technology and entertainment, which is to say, the entirety of culture. Itâs also a bit of an ethical minefield. Isnât the internet already full of enough real-seeming content that is a) not real and b) ultimately an effort to make money? Are the characters exploiting the sympathies of well-meaning or media-illiterate audiences? Maybe! On the other hand, thereâs something sort of darkly refreshing about an influencer âopenlyâ being created by a room of professional writers whose job is to come up with the most likable and interesting social media users possible. Influencers already have to walk the delicate line between aspirational and inauthentic, to attract new followers without alienating existing fans, to use their voice for change while remaining âbrand-safe.â The job has always been a performance, itâs just that now, that performance can be convincingly replicated by a team of writers and a willing actor. âWe're telling stories that are a little bit larger than life, and I think a lot of influencers on TikTok do the same thing,â Benjamin says. Itâs true â determining whether viral TikTok videos are ârealâ or created in earnest rather than ironically is the platformâs favorite sport. Tons of TikTokers play a character, to dramatic or comedic or aesthetic effect, but far fewer actually create a detailed narrative arc. If people really want to know whether someone like Sydney, Tia, or âBilly Hundosâ is real, itâs not immensely difficult to figure out. But they fooled at least two newspapers, and if one of their videos came across my For You page, they probably would have fooled me, too. It almost feels like benevolent trolling, a nicer version of, say, a [tweet designed to provoke outrage]( but really only ends up driving engagement to that personâs page. You sort of feel like an idiot taking the bait, but the internet is full of bizarre characters. How is anyone supposed to tell the difference?
Â
[Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( Clickbait ð - Politicians extremely need to learn [what the For You Page is](.
- Is there actually a woman punching random people at the West 4th Street subway station in Manhattan? TikTok thinks there is, but this one [smells like a conspiracy theory](.
- Spike Magazine [on internet personas](: âWhen somebody says, âMy life is a movieâ, or âLast night was a movieâ, it doesnât only mean they feel like theyâre in a movie; but that our lives, our scripted, filmed, edited and broadcast lives, are the dominant cultural form now, the one thatâs replaced movies.â
- A [fascinating, sad read]( from Cosmopolitan on the women struggling to escape QAnon.
- Inside [F*** You Pay Me](, the Glassdoor for influencers.
- New newsletter rec: [Hot Singles](, the Substack devoted to matchmaking New Yorkers. One Last Thing ð This [fascinating TikTok]( breaks down how influencers in China pool their money to appear ultra-wealthy without actually having to be (itâs pretty genius, imo).
Â
[Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( Manage your [email preferences]( or [unsubscribe](param=goods). If you value Voxâs unique explanatory journalism, support our work with a one-time or recurring [contribution](. View our [Privacy Policy]( and our [Terms of Service](. Vox Media, 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW, Floor 11, Washington, DC 20036. Copyright © 2021. All rights reserved.