I am a virtual girl from Tokyo: Virtual influencers, digital-orientalism and the (Im)materiality of race and gender

Abstract

By focussing on Imma – a virtual influencer from Japan – this article provides a critical examination of Japanese raciality and gender within the context of virtuality, (im)materiality and digital consumption. This piece has two key concerns. Firstly, the article proposes the idea of semiotic immaterialism as a way to theorise the ‘virtual influencer’, a relatively new phenomenon in ‘the West’ to emerge from the consumer-driven world of social media and online influencers. Here, the discussion will focus predominantly on the various racialised and gendered (im)materialities involved in the digital consumption of virtuality, and its relationship to prosumerist practices online. Secondly, this study also problematises the ways in which ‘Western’ popular media texts present Japanese virtuality to consumers. It is argued that these constitute digital-Orientalist discourses of racialised and gendered Japanese Otherness. How does virtuality complicate the idea of (im)material consumption? How do virtual influencers challenge and/or reinforce normative ideologies of race and gender? Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the study addresses these questions through textual analyses conducted on Imma’s Instagram images and captions, alongside ‘Western’ popular media texts about Imma. Ultimately, it is argued that Imma, as a virtual influencer, represents how the (im)materiality of Japanese race and gender is materialised through the digital- and self-Orientalist commodification of Japanese virtuality.

The applicability of scarcity, originality, and transaction tracking characteristics of the dermatological industry and non‐fungible token

“…In addition, by making myself NFT, special activities in a virtual environment will also be possible. If we become famous by creating a second me like the activities in the movie Ready Player One, the moments of my actions will be NFTed and developed into individual consumption, investment, or new life 33 . The NFT is also money after all.…”

“…If we become famous by creating a second me like the activities in the movie Ready Player One, the moments of my actions will be NFTed and developed into individual consumption, investment, or new life. 33 The NFT is also money after all. In the same sense as paying for purchases in all offline industries, the virtual currency will have to be paid for every purchase in a virtual environment.…”

The Past and Future of Gender Research in Marketing: Paradigms, Stances, and Value-Based Commitments

“…We also call for further studies on how marketing activities are used as a barometer for gender in societies, even as they distort that metric (Pollay 1986). Understanding gender promises to be more challenging in the future with technological accelerations in marketing (Borau et al 2021; Miyake 2023).…”

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“…The issue of a virtual image, with particular emphasis on the use of preferred races (including Japanese) and genders, was addressed in Miyake's (2022) analysis. Digital orientalism requires further identification, given its increasingly significant presence in the virtual world of consumers from Asia, including East Asian countries.…”