Celebrity Avatars:A Technical Approach to Creating Digital Avatars for Social Marketing Strategies

Avatars are growing in popularity and presented in many computer-mediated communication environments like social media, virtual 3D worlds, and augmented reality applications. With its incredible success in the Asian market, followed by the latest rapid increase in popularity for digital avatars in the Western market, it is necessary to look at the avatars' roots and their newfound use as celebrities. Virtual celebrities or influencers are digital characters consumed in digital mediums, with a given personality, background story, and the first-person point of view of the world, accessible to different social media platforms. These virtual celebrities are now being used for various entertainment industries, with game companies currently leading the way in building their metaverse by attracting audiences to virtual experiences, fueled by the need to sell live content during the Covid-19 pandemic. This paper traces the complex history of the Hindu avatara to a digital representation. It will explain how it has been affected by the context of literature, virtual gaming worlds, films, and new trends, moving away from a God-centered culture to one centered on humans. This effect is caused by the need for people to create a virtual presence and express themselves in virtual environments. Since its early beginning, avatars have filtered into the mainstream, and different brands have taken advantage by adopting them to represent their values to attract more customers and appear more reliable. This adoption led them to partner up with the entertainment industry creating virtual avatars, virtual concerts, and merchandise all tied in the metaverse.