From Avatars to Zodiacs: Navigating the New Era of Digital Representation
From mythological origins to modern-day avatars, explore how animals shape our online personas.
This week, it's all about animals taking an increasingly prominent place in our online representations (and you can read this letter in French over there).
"Everyone is looking for their cat." This French expression - which evokes both the pursuit of our desires and the fact that our desires must be mutual to be satisfied - has never been more relevant in our digital lives.
Not a day goes by without a new digital companion being offered to us. And in this ecosystem, cats and all other real or imaginary animals are popular choices for defining and socially representing ourselves.
The animal as a symbolic representation
Ancient civilizations laid the groundwork for our affinity for animals. In Greek mythology, a little owl always accompanies (or represents) Athena.
Metaphorically representing the human mind towards philosophy, yet also possessing special powers, the owl is one example among many in a long cultural process of signs, stories, and transmissions through the centuries, during which the animal transforms into a true symbolic artifact. In 2024, Duolingo's green owl has nearly 12 million followers on TikTok, and a whole set of particular codes. Duo (its nickname) is a (very) distant cousin of Athena's owl, yet it shares similarities with it.
Digital platforms exploit this ancient symbolism to create immediate and emotionally striking connections with us. By adopting animal motifs, brands tap into the symbolic power of these creatures, built up over centuries, bringing diverse audiences together around a shared meaning. Animals serve as both representations and social markers, crucial in a digital landscape for standing out and captivating audiences. Animals enable the development of a highly distinctive immaterial value with their customers, which can be immediately and emotionally perceived, and therefore understood.
The influence of video games: the Proteus effect.
In video games, the Proteus effect describes, to simplify, "a phenomenon in which an individual's behavior, within virtual worlds, is influenced by the characteristics of their avatar." A set of stereotypes will influence both the player's actions and how they are perceived online. Using avatars in social networks exacerbates these mechanisms.
The Proteus effect gives a second life to older symbols. The logo of the French automobile brand Peugeot is a lion. But before selling cars, Peugeot was actually mostly famous in the 19th and early 20th centuries for its saws. As Peugeot writes: "Speed, agility, and bite: it's the lion that imposes itself as the emblematic figure of the brand. The animal is placed on an arrow symbolizing the cutting speed of the saw." In 2021, Peugeot unveiled its new brand identity, "the lions of our time." The embodiment with this rebranding went even further, as employees on LinkedIn added the Lion effect over their profile pictures. It's not just corporate communication but a modulation of self-representation.
Telling stories online with animals.
Avatars, especially animal representations, offer a way to express an identity beyond physical constraints, especially as we create fictions of ourselves in social networks.
Using one's own photo is of course an option on WhatsApp or TikTok, but choosing virtual avatars like animals is a way to escape physical limitations and convey a different kind of narrative. Pop culture encourages a richer, more creative way of presenting oneself.
It's also a way to facilitate interactions and conversations for people less comfortable in digital gatherings.
Apple's Memojis, or Zoom's animal-avatar features, were created for people who don't necessarily want to appear on camera with their own faces, but still want to be able to express bodily or facial expressions. Animals are entertaining conversation starters and a way to represent oneself. On Netflix, users must choose an image, often an animated character or an aestheticized version of an animal. They become a familiar way to define a user in relation to another.
But this new animal reign 2.0 is accelerated by new forms of spirituality, especially in the United States. Paganism, witchcraft, and shamanism are experiencing rapid growth. Far from being anecdotal, astrology has become a big part of digital culture, a consequence of liquid modernity. Millions of Co-Star app screenshots are shared on Instagram; the #witchtok hashtag on TikTok gathers over 6 million videos. As Zodiac signs are based on an animalistic mystique, it is increasingly common for users' bios (and content) to mention whether they are Aries or Capricorn, informing a decision.
In a world where the first glance at someone's digital profile has become their back cover, animals offer a simple yet powerful way to qualify oneself. Asian cultures also heavily influence our practices. The Lunar New Year is a big moment to talk about the traits, influences of the annual animal.
According to birth dates, animals and elements become a profound way to talk about and define someone. The balance between entertainment, light conversations, and intimate moments is delicate, but its impact is real as digital platforms tend to merge and remix cultures.
Digital companions that need bodies and voices.
AI assistants require conversations and a warmer tone of voice than robotic responses. We can compare this to the explosion of emojis in our daily conversations. Emojis are graphical representations to express an emotion, a mood, an idea. Animals are thus a creative ground that helps define a complex mood, a joke, a feeling that the recipient will understand in a highly personalized way. In this case, customers will draw from the animals of certain brands to enrich their own narrative, their own self-representations or digital identities. In a way, they become their own fairy tales.
The figure of the week: 57%
According to a Mintel study for Meta, 57% of people globally are seeking to reconnect with their own heritage, their own roots.
Amazing links
"Faceless accounts" on Instagram are booming. Read a brilliant analysis by
TikTok continues to be the place for discovering products and brands. Check out Social Media Today
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