Lil Miquela’s Body Con Job
Miquela Sousa has over 1 million followers on Instagram and was recently hacked by a Trump troll. But she isn’t real
Over lunch this spring, Nikola Burnett, a 15-year-old who always carries two cameras — one film and one digital — sat staring at an Instagram selfie, perplexed. The subject was Miquela Sousa, better known as Lil Miquela, a 19-year-old Brazilian-American model, musical artist, and influencer with over a million Instagram followers, who is computer-generated. “She’s not real, right?” Nikola asked me shyly. She knew the answer, but something about Miquela made her question what her eyes were telling her.
At first glance, or swipe, Miquela could understandably be mistaken for a living, breathing person. She wears real-life clothes by streetwear brands like Supreme and luxury labels like Chanel. She hangs out with real-life musicians, artists, and influencers in real-life trendy restaurants in New York and Los Angeles, where she “lives.” When Miquela holds her phone to a mirror, her reflection stares back. When she is photographed in the daylight, her body casts a shadow. She even complains about allergies and often references the temperature with tweets like “39 degrees out im still getting this iced matcha.”
