Mar 31, 2023 · 47m · a16z
Digital Humans and the Story Behind Lil Miquela
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Host Steph Smith speaks with Brud co-founders Trevor McFedries and Isaac Bratzel about the creation of Lil Miquela, exploring how narrative storytelling, technical innovation, and digital avatar culture are redefining the future of celebrity and AI human interaction.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. The host holds 28.3% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The host as informed peer 2.8 Guest teaching 5.2 Guest disagreement 1.4 The host pushing back 1.8
speaking balance: gold is the host, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 39:02 Isaac dismissing anti-AI rejectionism
Isaac directly confronts anti-AI sentiment in the art community, calling attempts to outright reject the technology wishful thinking and unrealistic.
Hardest push from the host ▶ 30:04 Steph reframing physical reality vs substanceSteph refuses the premise that physical presence inherently equates to depth, challenging Trevor by noting real-world media can be equally manufactured.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 14:40 Trevor educating on the reverse media pyramidTrevor introduces a novel media framework explaining how digital avatars invert traditional top-down Hollywood IP strategy by building audiences on social first.
The host holds their own ▶ 30:04 Steph demonstrating media theory expertiseSteph demonstrates sharp industry expertise by making an insightful distinction between physical reality and creative substance.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The host as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The host pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Origin Vision of Lil Miquela in 2016 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Steph sets the historical context of 2016 and prompts Trevor for the core insight behind Lil Miquela. Trevor explains his thesis on social media narrative capture, drawing parallels to FourChan and the cultural impact of Will and Grace. | |
| Photorealism, Uncanny Valley, and Social Storytelling | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Steph inquires about the decision to make a photorealistic human character rather than a stylized avatar. Trevor and Isaac explain overcoming the uncanny valley by grounding fictional storytelling in familiar social platforms. | |
| Cultural Backstory and Audience Resonance | 2 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Steph asks how Trevor's background in music and culture shaped Miquela's attributes. Trevor detail how specific decisions like making her nineteen and half-Brazilian targeted underserved, highly engaged global internet demographics. | |
| Para-Fiction, Viral Conspiracies, and Iconic Traits | 2 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Steph asks for early signs of cultural traction. Trevor introduces the concept of para-fiction and viral conspiracy videos like Shane Dawson's, while Isaac highlights fan community defense mechanics and iconic visual identifiers like space buns. | |
| The Reverse Media Pyramid and Narrative Data Science | 3 | 6 | 1 | 2 | Steph asks about building long-term narrative depth and incorporating fan feedback. Trevor explains the reverse media pyramid where IP starts as a single image on social media and scales upward, supported by narrative data science. | |
| Technical Animation Bottlenecks and Spatial Computing | 2 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Steph asks about technical execution across media formats. Isaac details the massive cost step-up between static images and animated content, while Trevor outlines his spatial computing thesis of characters drawing users into new platforms. | |
| Strategic Workarounds and Quality Optimization | 2 | 6 | 2 | 1 | Trevor shares clever practical design constraints used to bypass technical animation bottlenecks like hair and foot movement. Isaac emphasizes that 90 percent visual fidelity is sufficient on social media compared to film studio budgets. | |
| Democratization of AI and Finding a Creative Edge | 3 | 6 | 2 | 2 | Steph prompts advice for creators using newly democratized AI tools. Trevor notes that low barriers increase global competition, while Isaac distinguishes between 2D generative tools and true 3D spatial environments. | |
| Reality, Authenticity, and Creative Substance | 6 | 5 | 2 | 6 | Steph actively pushes back on Trevor's discussion of AI content saturation, arguing that real-world meatspace content can be just as manufactured and devoid of substance as virtual content. Trevor validates her point by contrasting contemporary art critique with K-pop authenticity. | |
| Public Perception, AI Ethics, and Cultural Attribution | 4 | 6 | 2 | 3 | The group explores public fear, ethics, and blue-check authenticity debates. Isaac challenges anti-AI rejectionism as unrealistic, while Trevor advocates for blockchain-based cultural attribution to repatriate value to creator communities. |
Statements from this episode (17)
McFedries: Modern Disney or Marvel Should Be Built on Social Media
“If you were going to build a modern Disney or Marvel now, you probably wouldn't want to start in comic books or in theaters. You'd want to start where the eyeballs are, which was, you know, really on social”
McFedries: Minimizing novelty and maximizing familiarity drives adoption of novel media
“And if we minimize as much of the novelty as possible and keep as much of it familiar as possible, I thought we had a better chance of succeeding.”
McFedries: Audiences engage with media aimed 5 to 7 years older
“People engage with media that it's like five to seven years older than them.”
McFedries: PG-13 ratings neutered middle-ground cinema and TV
“In a post PG-thirteen America, like movie ratings really neutered kind of like middle ground of cinema and television where I used to have these kind of like John Hughes films.”
Bratzel: Digital avatars need fixed physical traits to maintain instant recognizability
“I think that was one of the brilliant insights we had early on. It's like people, like recognizable, like instantly, because if we change it too much, right, you lose that kind of like instant recognizability. So Michaela, just like sticking with the space bun…”
McFedries: Narrative media businesses are like fashion businesses requiring endless novelty
“Narrative is, you know, like unthinkably hard, right? You know, there's all kinds of books you can read about why you shouldn't build like narrative driven media businesses, because you, it's like building a fashion business. Like you have to keep things inter…”
McFedries: Media companies should build IP from single characters up to films
“Traditionally you kind of started with this like longer form asset, like a Star Wars, and then you kind of iterate in like a Star Wars video game, comic book, all the way up to like a lightsaber you could buy at Target. And so you have this pyramid that moves …”
McFedries: Brud operated as a tech company using weekly data science on content
“We really tried to build, you know, a technology organization disguised as a media organization. So we had like data science teams every week bringing back what worked and what didn't, building taxonomies on images and videos.”
McFedries: Compelling characters drive new platform adoption, not empty virtual worlds
“I always thought that like a character would pull you into emergent platform. So like, you know, Pikachu is the reason you get Pokemon Go. You know, you don't want to just walk around your yard scanning stuff. You want to follow Pikachu somewhere.”
Bratzel: Brud sought 90% visual quality at 10% traditional CGI cost
“What we were trying to do is like the lowest scale possible. We're doing this on social media. We can get to 90% quality, right? People are not going to care if like this one fly away of her hair is like slightly not quite right, right? So we're like, how can …”
Bratzel: Cheap AI tools won't automatically turn anyone into top storytellers
“And even today, I think one of the things we're going to run into a lot is this idea of like, Oh, anybody can do this now with AI tools and everything else. And to me, it feels a little bit like suggesting that because Ableton is like five dollars now, anybody…”
McFedries: TikTok creators compete globally, not just in their social graph
“And so, effectively, if you're creating media on TikTok, right, like, you're not even competing for attention in your following, in your social graph. Like, you're competing against the globe.”
Bratzel: 2D generative AI won't suffice; virtual experiences require 3D
“The generated eye tools and the stuff you see image based right now is very two dimensional. I don't think that's actually gonna be the solution. I think what it's gonna be is when those tools are able to really generate and include into like a three dimension…”
McFedries: Generative AI will accelerate media's race to the bottom
“This kind of race to the bottom in a lot of media is going to, like, that bottom's going to hit far quicker because of AI. It's going to be really easy to be good at things.”
McFedries: Backward-looking AI models will cause repetitive media feedback loops
“It's going to be really hard to be excellent, and because, you know, models effectively are backwards looking, data kind of begets more data. I mean, you're going to have some, like, nasty feedback loops, not entirely dissimilar from, like, what happened to Ne…”
Bratzel: Rejecting AI technology to stop its adoption is wishful thinking
“The idea that you're gonna, like, reject this and then it's just gonna stop in this tracks is just the most wishful thinking thing I've ever, I can ever imagine, right? So the thing to do is try to, like, identify the parts of it that you don't agree with and …”
McFedries: Unlimited celebrity availability could devalue virtual engagement
“The variable rewards component of social, that kind of like brain hack of a slot machine brain hack is what makes a lot of social experiences sticky. And so the idea that you could just, you know, message Emma Chamberlain and she responds right away or pops up…”