Play or Attack? Navigating Identity in the Virtual World, a Conceptual Perspective on Virtual Influencers and Influencer Marketing

Considering the increasing public fascination with virtual worlds, such as virtual reality, augmented reality and the metaverse, virtual influencers have emerged on social media platforms as computer-generated imagery avatars with credible and authentic identities that resemble humans. They are equipped with artificial intelligence and rendered visually as an immersive, real-time constructed human being in a digital world. The virtual influencer landscape not only allows consumers to connect in more authentic and dynamic ways but also provides brands many opportunities to experiment with new marketing approaches. However, as we become more engrossed in online spaces, the lines between our physical existence and online presence become increasingly blurred in such digital coexistence environments. In many ways, this virtual construction of identity raises numerous questions regarding the evolution of marketing techniques, ethics, motivation and communication. Among the characteristics of a virtual identity, its ability to construct and imitate human identities leads to both play with and an attack on social media users. At the intersection of multi-identities, this chapter goes on to explore and contextualise the conundrum of the conception of identity and the interplay between the real and unreal, focusing on its impact on identity construction on both personal and societal levels among social media users.