Lil Miquela appeared in 2016, practically blinking into existence on Instagram, and suddenly the internet had a new influencer to argue about. Calvin Klein ads with Bella Hadid. Music releases. Opinions. Alleged dating.
Here’s the kicker. Miquela isn’t just a digital novelty. She’s a fully functional marketing asset. Brands pay real money for her posts, collaborations, and endorsements. She doesn’t flake. She doesn’t smoke a cigarette on set. She doesn’t post a 3 a.m. Twitter meltdown. She’s optimized, predictable, perfectly packaged (and lowkey…hot?).
And yet, she makes people twitch. Enter the “clanker” trend. Some corners of the internet call AI influencers and robots “clankers,” a slur born from fear, humor, and the human need to assert that we are still in charge here. It’s a cultural defense mechanism, a way to preserve humanity in a world where perfectly algorithmic faces can rack up millions of followers without ever blinking in real life. Miquela, although one of the original, most successful AI spokespeople, is not immune.
The tension is real. Just look at the recent Guess ad in Vogue, which ran a campaign using an AI model. People hated it. Scrolling through the comments was a masterclass in collective human rage: “Uncanny,” “soulless,” “why even bother?” The backlash proves that audiences can spot perfection and they don’t always love it. Influencers, don’t panic. Your job may be safer than mine as a writer. Brands are learning the line between novelty and connection is thinner than ever.
The AI-created model in the Guess advertisement - Vogue US
Humans make mistakes. They spill coffee on keyboards, misquote stats, post late-night rants, and somehow that chaos becomes part of the product. AI doesn’t have that, at least not without a carefully coded PR team. Thinking back to Freddy’s AI influencer experiment in Are Influencers COOKED, I would have to vote no: AI creators will not replace humans. We want to watch creators who, yes, may be hotter than us, richer, funnier, but flawed just the same. Something warm we can relate to, laugh with, or at. I’m relieved to see people calling out “clankers”, demanding that brands opt out of the easy way and invest back in their audiences by at least providing us a real spokesperson to engage with.
So where does that leave marketing? AI can be a repeatable, risk-free campaign machine. But the audience wants texture, imperfection, a little mess. The clanker backlash is not just a cultural joke; it is a lesson in the limits of perfection. Miquela, for all her flawlessness, for her success in appearing beside Bella Hadid, reminds us that sure we’ll never been perfect, but we’ll certainly never be clankers.
In short, she is a functional asset, a novelty, and a cultural mirror all at once. The clankers are not a warning. They are a punchline. Brands that get the joke will get the results.