인스타그램에서 수십만 명의 팔로워를 거느린 근육질 남성 인플루언서들이 사실은 AI로 생성된 가짜라는 사실이 밝혀져 논란이 되고 있습니다. 창작자들은 게이 남성을 타겟으로 한 콘텐츠를 제작하지만 대부분의 실제 팬은 여성인 것으로 나타났습니다. 이들이 영화 프리미어 시사회 레드카펫에 등장해 가짜 인플루언서의 상업적 이용과 불가능한 체형에 대한 왜곡된 기준 등 윤리적 문제를 촉발시켰습니다.
번역된 본문
짙은 갈색 눈동자, 환한 미소, 그리고 우스울 정도로 각진 근육질 몸매를 가진 재영준(Jae Young Joon)은 전형적인 멋진 남성 인플루언서의 이상적인 모습이다. 32만 명 이상의 팔로워를 보유한 그의 인스타그램에는 집에서 마스크팩을 해보거나 친구들과 소주를 마시며 노래방에 간 모습, 또는 코첼라 페스티벌의 관람차 앞에서 포즈를 취한 사진들이 정기적으로 게시된다. 가끔은 자신의 음악을 홍보하기도 하는데, 최근 발매된 LP 음반 'Pressure Release'의 커버는 BDSM에서 영감을 받아 가슴받이와 쇠사슬 아래로 물결치는 그의 등 근육을 보여주는 파격적인 모습이다. 이러한 인상적인 온라인 활동 덕분에 재영의 팬들은 그의 콘텐츠를 열광적으로 소비한다. 댓글에는 불꽃과 하트 눈 이모지가 가득하고 그의 음악을 칭찬하는 글들이 줄을 잇는다. 하지만 그의 프로필로 돌아가 "인간의 정신. AI 생성(Human mind. AI generated)"이라고 적힌 소개글을 볼 때야 비로소 재영이 실존 인물이 아니라는 사실을 깨닫게 된다. 그의 친구들도 가짜요. 음악 경력도 거짓이며, 코첼라 여행 역시 현실이 아니다. 재영은 30대 초반의 온화한 말투를 지닌 캐나다인 뤽 티에리(Luc Thierry)의 머릿속에서 탄생했으며, 그는 지난 몇 달 동안 재영의 계정을 성장시켜 왔다. 프로필에 재영이 AI로 생성되었음을 명시했음에도 불구하고, 그는 대부분의 팔로워들이 이를 무시하거나 그렇지 않은 척한다고 말한다. "사람들이 마치 실제 상황인 것처럼 반응하는 것을 볼 때, 저는 그들이 이것이 현실이 아니라는 것을 이해하고 있으며 비디오 게임이나 TV 쇼의 캐릭터와 준사회적 관계(parasocial relationship)를 맺는 것과 같은 방식으로 롤플레잉을 하거나 판타지로 받아들이기를 선택하고 있다고 생각합니다."라고 티에리는 말했다. "이것이 완전히 동일한 상황은 아니라는 것을 이해하지만, 저는 그 배후에 있는 창작자로서 그들의 상상속으로 들어가 그들이 그 세계의 일부가 된 것처럼 느낄 수 있게 해주는 것이 제 역할이라고 생각합니다." 티에리는 주로 게이 남성을 타겟으로 콘텐츠를 제작하는 창작자 그룹의 일원이다. 다만 티에리는 재영의 팬층 대부분이 여성이라는 사실에 놀랐다고 밝혔다. 이 창작자들은 단체 채팅방을 함께 사용하며 서로의 게시물에 좋아요와 댓글을 남기고, 팬층을 늘리기 위해 자주 콜라보를 진행한다. 이번 주 초, '산토스 워커(Santos Walker)'와 '케일렙 엘리스(Caleb Ellis)'라는 두 캐릭터가 '악마는 프라다를 입는다 2(The Devil Wears Prada 2)'의 프리미어 시사회 레드카펫에 '등장한' 후 바이럴되었다. 작가이자 에디터인 미켈 스트리트(Mikelle Street)는 "대박. 인스타그램을 스크롤하다가 AI 모델/계정으로 이루어진 전체 그룹을 발견했다"고 글을 남겼다. 산토스와 케일렙의 레드카펫 등장은 온라인에서 큰 비판을 촉발했으며, 일부에서는 이 게시물이 영화 배급사인 20세기 스튜디오의 광고성 콘텐츠(sponcon)라고 추측했다. 하지만 이는 사실이 아니었다. WIRED는 '산토스' 계정의 창작자가 스튜디오와의 협의 없이 이미지를 만들었으며, 이 게시물이 레드카펫 몰래 침투하는 것과 같은 온라인 상의 장난으로 기획되었음을 확인했다. 이 창작자는 게시물을 위해 정교한 서사까지 만들어냈는데, 부자 영화 제작자가 산토스와 케일렙을 전용기로 할리우드로 데려왔다는 상상이었다. (20세기 스튜디오는 코멘트 요청에 응답하지 않았다.) 이 게시물이 광고는 아니었지만, 산토스와 같은 AI 인플루언서들이 대중을 기만하는 것인지, 아니면 브랜드 콘텐츠의 미래를 위해 위험한 선례를 남기는 것인지에 대한 논쟁이 온라인에서 일어났다. 한 사람은 X(옛 트위터)에 "우리는 이미 사람 인플루언서를 가지고 있습니다. 그렇다면 다음 단계는 영화, 프로그램, 제품 등을 마케팅할 목적으로 처음부터 100% 통제 가능한 가짜 인플루언서를 만드는 것입니까?"라고 적었다. 또 다른 이들은 산토스와 케일렙의 팬들을 조롱하고 그들의 우스꽝스럽게 거대한 체형을 훔쳐보는 행태를 비판하며, AI 모델들이 게이 커뮤니티 내에서 비현실적인 신체 기준을 어떻게 전파하고 있는지에 대한 담론을 촉발시켰다. 그러나 티에리와 그의 동료 창작자들의 말을 들어보면, 대부분의 사람들은 그들이 하는 일을 오해하고 있다. 그들은 누구도 속이지 않는다고 주장한다. 브랜드들이 여전히 AI 생성 인플루언서와의 협업을 극도로 꺼리고 있기 때문에, 그들은 실제로 돈을 많이 벌지도 못하거나 거의 벌지 못하고 있기 때문이다. ('산토스'가 자극적인 수영복 브랜드를 태그한 어느 '캠페인'에서...)
Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Comment Loader Save Story Save this story With his deep brown eyes, wide grin, and almost comically chiseled body, Jae Young Joon is the platonic ideal of a hunky male influencer. On Instagram , where he has more than 320,000 followers, he regularly posts himself trying on sheet masks at home, enjoying soju and karaoke with his friends, or posing in front of the Ferris wheel at Coachella . Occasionally, he’ll promote his music, including his recent LP Pressure Release , which features a BDSM-inspired album cover, his back muscles rippling underneath a harness and chains. It’s an impressive online presence, and Jae’s fans eat it up: his comments are filled with fire and heart-eye emoji and people praising his music. It’s not until you go back to his profile and look at his bio, which says “Human mind. AI generated,” that you realize Jae isn’t real. His friends aren’t real. His music career isn’t real. Even his trip to Coachella isn’t real. Jae is the brainchild of Luc Thierry, a soft-spoken Canadian man in his early thirties who has been growing Jae’s account for the past few months. Even though he discloses that Jae is AI-generated on his profile, he says most of his followers ignore it or choose to pretend otherwise. “When I see people responding in a way that it is real, I'm hoping that they understand it's not real and that they're choosing to role-play or to accept that it's a fantasy, the same way you’d form a parasocial relationship with a character from a video game or a TV show,” Thierry tells me. “And I understand this is not exactly the same, but I feel like my job as the creator behind it is to indulge in that and allow them to feel like they're part of it.” Thierry is part of a cadre of creators making content primarily for a gay male audience—though Thierry says he has been surprised to find that the majority of Jae’s audience is female. The creators are on a group chat together. They regularly like and comment on each other’s posts, frequently collaborating with each other to grow their audiences. Earlier this week, two of the characters, “Santos Walker” and “Caleb Ellis,” went viral after “appearing” on the red carpet for the premiere of The Devil Wears Prada 2 . “I’m gagging. Scrolling through Instagram and I came across a whole group of AI models/accounts,” the writer and editor Mikelle Street wrote . Santos and Caleb’s red carpet appearance sparked backlash online, with some assuming that the post was sponcon for 20th Century Studios, the film’s distributor. This wasn’t actually the case; WIRED has confirmed that the creator of the “Santos” account made the image without the studio’s involvement, intending the post to serve as the online equivalent of crashing the red carpet. The creator even crafted an elaborate narrative for the post, imagining a rich movie producer had ushered Santos and Caleb to Hollywood on a private jet. (20th Century Studios did not respond to a request for comment.) Even though the post was not sponcon, it triggered a discussion online about whether AI-generated influencers like Santos and his ilk were deceiving their audiences or setting a dangerous precedent for the future of branded content. “We currently have human influencers,” one person wrote on X. “So, the next step is CREATING fake, 100% controllable influencers FROM SCRATCH for the sole purpose of marketing films, shows, products etc.?” Others mocked Santos’ and Caleb’s followers and those ogling their comically bulky frames, sparking discourse about how AI models propagate unrealistic body standards in the gay community. But to hear Thierry and his fellow creators tell it, most people misunderstand the work they’re doing. They insist they’re not scamming anyone, as they’re not actually making much, if any, money, as brands are still extremely wary of working with AI-generated influencers. (One “campaign,” in which “Santos” tagged the provocative swimwear brand Charlie by MZ, drew so much backlash that the brand removed the post from its page.) And even though their burly, flawlessly proportioned avatars undoubtedly promote outrageous ideas about the ideal gay male body, they’re also not particularly shy about the fact that they are AI. Santos’ bio, like Jae’s, discloses the use of generative AI, even if their followers don’t necessarily notice or care. Luc Thierry, who started out as a YouTuber creating K-pop fan content, says he began creating AI-generated profiles in the summer of 2024, largely because he felt “burnt out” creating content under his own name. “I just felt it was more satisfying and a little easier to be able to create content without having to put your face on it,” he says. “Jae” was just one of many AI-generated avatars he invented, a drop-dead gorgeous influencer who combined the sticky sweetness of K-pop fandom with the edginess of a gay male thirst-trap creator. “Until then, I’d primarily focused on female influencers,” Thierry says. “But I wanted to feel maybe a little bit more authentic in what I was creating.” “Jae” had only 700 followers when his account blew up last February, thanks to a Reel of him dancing shirtless to a Portuguese pop song which got almost 20 million views. “It kind of forced me to put all my energy into him to ride that momentum,” Thierry says. He is now a member of a number of group chats with other male model creators, who are both straight and gay, collaborating with them on posts (one of his most popular posts features him and “Santos” in tight briefs, gazing at a waterfall) and tagging them in his Stories. The primary group chat was started by the creator behind “Romeo DeSouza,” a Dutch-Brazilian male model with 56,000 followers (who is also identified as an AI creation in his bio). He started the group chat so his fellow creators would have the support of real humans, despite the artificial nature of their creations. The men in the chat almost exclusively call each other by their AI avatars’ names. “It’s kind of a safe space for us to deal with the backlash, because there aren't a ton of people doing this yet,” Thierry says. “It’s not like I can just call up my mom and say, ‘Hey, someone's bullying my AI influencer.’” From the start, Thierry says, he was extremely “transparent” about the fact that Jae was AI-generated. Still, he knows the lines blur easily for many of his followers. He frequently receives heartfelt messages from lovelorn fans who clearly haven’t clocked that Jae is not real. “That’s where I have the biggest moral dilemma,” he says. He concedes he finds it difficult to balance between transparency and not disturbing the immersive world he has created for his audience. “It’s like I’m creating this TV show for people to tune into on social media,” he says. “No one breaks the fourth wall and says ‘this is a TV show.’ That ruins the whole point of a TV show.” And it’s a TV show that people are undoubtedly watching. Though many will steer away from Santos’, Caleb’s, and Jae’s obviously digitized content, others are clearly deeply invested in it. Santos and Caleb may have gotten backlash from their viral red carpet moment, but they were also undoubtedly a harbinger for what’s to come: anyone who has been following the AI space isn’t naive enough to think that computer-generated influencers promoting brands isn’t just around the corner. (In fact, it’s already happening: The AI-generated influencer Lil Miquela, who has more than 2 million followers, has landed brand deals for Prada and Samsung.) Thierry, for his part, is going all in on Jae. He’s launching an AI modeling “agency,” Born2BeAI, and he’s also developed a community specifically for gay AI male models, called Virtuomo . He hasn’t made much money off of his account—just a few thousand dollars, mostly from Spotify and revenue from the subscription-based AI creator website Fanvue. But he anticipates the market could soon become friendlier to influencer