Digital avatars often render users whiter, more sexualized, and vulnerable to theft

Evidence

This fantasy is fast becoming a reality. In late 2022, social media was inundated with iridescent, smoothed-out, slimmed-down versions of friends, family members, and online acquaintances who had succumbed to the “magic avatar” craze. They had uploaded ten photos of themselves to the app Lensa, and, in return for supplying this precious data, had received these avatar versions of themselves: sleeker, CGI-like (and, often, whiter and more overtly sexualized than the photos the simulations were based upon). While feeling pangs of desire to build my own faker, prettier version of me, I also found myself wondering about unintended consequences. For those who had engaged in this supposedly fun exercise in doubling, would looking in a normal mirror or at a non-altered photograph now feel like a kind of betrayal? Would their artificial self destroy the self-esteem of their real self? Many also pointed out how this could go wrong in more nefarious ways: someone other than you could pretend to be you, upload your photos, including ones you would never choose to share, and create their own personal doppelganger to exploit, sexually or otherwise. — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 189

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s broader interest in digital doubling and identity; also pairs with Bannon passage in this same chapter about avatars feeling more real than selves.
• SEED: A possible essay: the Lensa avatar trend as the mainstream consumer version of the same projection-identification machinery Bannon weaponizes.