Hatsune Miku is Japan's Biggest Pop Star on Social Media, and She's Not Even Human Patrick Brzeski - The Hollywood Reporter
go to original April 12, 2014

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She's "written" over 180,000 songs. She has 1.95 million Facebook followers. She's sold out concerts around the globe and fronted top campaigns for Louis Vuitton, Google and Toyota.

By many metrics she's a typical Japanese pop star. The one crucial difference: Hatsune Miku is not human.

Created by Crypton Future Media, a Japanese software development company based in Sapporo, the "entity" beloved by millions, which goes by the name of Hatsune Miku, is a "fabricated digital voice sporting a virtual character body," as the Japan Times describes her.

Her voice was digitally synthesized and her physical characteristics were generated by crowdsourced preferences. The consensus settled on giant turquoise pigtails and the Japanese otaku favorite: a schoolgirl-ish demeanor. At concerts she "performs" as a hologram.

Read the rest at Billboard

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