This past year, I have found myself spending way too much time in the youtube blackhole.

For those who are unaware of what that is, it is when you watch one video and then watch one of the suggested videos. This ultimatley leads you to end up watching missing peoples cases when you started off watching a makeup tutorial. Anyway, that pretty much sums up my life. One of the videos I stumbled upon because of this inevitable pattern was Shane Dawson’s conspiracy theories. My friends and I would grab all the food in my house, gather around a tiny computer screen and prepare to question our reality. One of his reoccurring topics was a women named Lil Miquela.

At first glance, Lil Miquela look’s like a doll. Her perfect physique and skin do not add up. If you call the Kardashian family fake, you’ll have no idea what to call her. Immediately, it doesn’t make sense. The singer and model keeps her one million (yes million!) Instagram followers caught up on her crazy, glamorous life but seems to never dive too deep into her own personal life. That was true up until last week.

In Shane’s youtube videos, he was often talking about the conspiracy theory that Lil Miquela was not a real person. And as of last week, she officially confirmed that he was infact correct and she is not human. Her account was hacked and the hacker stated that Lil Miquela needed to stop telling her fans she was a human because she was not. She was a robot, artificial intelligence, not a human being. But the problem is she states that she feels emotions. She claims to feel love and sadness. She preaches how she feels disappointment when she see’s her fans call her fake. So is she still not real? Emotion and empathy is one of the key parts that makes us human, but does that define how we see other things as well?

I mean honestly I still have no idea what is going on but it leads to a very real question; Is this the future? Are we all going to be looking up to these ‘robots’ in the years to come? It is crazy how one can develop a sense of empathy for her. Do you feel sympathy for your computer? Do you feel sympathy for Siri? No, I believe we do not. But, when you put a face on these big machines suddenly, our hearts feel for them. That’s all she is right? A computer who was given a pretty face? Lil Miquela has fans, followers and some see her as an inspirational figure. Are all of our all future celebrities going to be a computer with a pretty face?

Is this just the future of social influencers or the future of Hollywood and society as a whole? I guess we will have to wait and see!