Last month ( June 2019), Qai Qai grandfather, Alexis Ohanian, Sr. solidified the importance of her voice in ushering in the next wave of storytelling, with this quote in the New York Times.
But the concerns faced by human influencers — maintaining a camera-ready appearance and dealing with online trolls while keeping sponsors happy — do not apply to beings who never have an off day.
That’s why brands like working with avatars — they don’t have to do 100 takes,” said Alexis Ohanian, a co-founder of Reddit and the self-described grandfather of the virtual influencer Qai Qai.
Social media, to date, has largely been the domain of real humans being fake,” Mr. Ohanian added. “But avatars are a future of storytelling.
Hsu, Tiffany. “These Influencers Aren’t Flesh and Blood, Yet Millions Follow Them.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 17 June 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/06/17/business/media/miquela-virtual-influencer.html.
The Future of Storytelling
After reading “These Influencers Aren’t Flesh and Blood, Yet Millions Follow Them.” there is no questioning Qai Qai’s status as a virtual influencer. Each month, I’m fascinated by the brilliance Qai Qai’s social channels delivers; inspiring us while modeling how to build relationships to secure the bag.
Then on June 26th, I attended Media Literacy Starts Young: Strategies for Media Mentorship in the Early Years and Early Grades: A pre-conference workshop hosted by New America as part of the biennial conference of the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) where Dorothy Stoltz, from Carroll County Library in Maryland, presented “Pepper the Robot Comes to the Library (video).” The video highlighted how the library system used Pepper – a humanoid robot during storytime with preschoolers and their families.
The Carroll County Public Library is using a humanoid robot named Pepper to teach coding to teens and adults. They received Pepper at the beginning of this year and have been introducing her to visitors at the various CCPL branches.
Kyles, Akira. “Pepper, Carroll County Public Library’s Robot, Teaches Coding – and Also Does Impressions and Dances.” Carrollcountytimes.com, 29 June 2019, www.carrollcountytimes.com/news/local/cc-pepper-robot-ccpl-20190515-story.html.
Stoltz, presentation affirmed conversations I had and the sessions I attended while at the 40th International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference. Sparking my curiosity in Walter Ong’s theory outlined in “Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word.” How might Ong’s theory be updated for storytelling with today’s technology?
Can you imagine Qai Qai’s virtual world?
I can conceive a partnership between Qai Qai + Augmented Reality for iOS or Qai Qai + Black Girls Code x AIY Voice Kit from Google. Furthermore, I can appreciate how impactful Qai Qai’s voice and community would be in the virtual world culture. Also, she has proven her ability to masterfully blur the line between the virtual and the real world as displayed on her social channels.
Did Qai Qai see Archie while traveling this month?
This month left me my mind blown. Now, I’m thinking about who’s leading the mainstream adoption of the virtual world (AR/VR), Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and voice technology.
