Social media users upload thousand and thousand photos on the Internet trying to be less real, with filters and makeup. It’s not surprising that social net became an ideal world where everyone is allowed to live in idealized forms. Cameron-James Wilson, the British photographer, has created world’s first digital supermodel Shudu Gram who adroitly blends into this perfectly beautiful social world.

Her stunningly beautiful skin and an enchanting gaze attract more than 40k Instagram followers. The virtual woman has racked up a cult following due to her life-like appearance.  Once Rihanna’s beauty brand Fenty reposted the photograph of Shudu, people started speculating whether she was authentic or not. The photograph exceeded more than 200k Instagram likes. Moreover, this Instagram post gained 2k comments.

There have been people that were insulted, confused, and accepting of her, while some found it pretty cool. Some people believe Shudu represents a lot more than one man’s digital art project, because she, a Black woman, was created by a white man and «hired» instead of an actual Black model:

Some Instagram users try to explain, there is no difference:

Also, users of Twitter don’t pass by the news about the digital model and continue the discussion:

As we see, the news of her non-existence has triggered an online backlash, with people quickly pointing out how problematic it is.

‘The point is really that I’m doing something I love. I love technology, Sci-fi films, gaming, CGI movies like Final Fantasy, Shudu is just everything I’m passionate about brought together’, Shudu’s creator Cameron-James Wilson pointed out, responding to some question in an interview. Cameron also mentioned, ‘Shudu is coming from the other direction, she’s a fantasy trying to break through into reality and I have plans to help her do so. She’s already posed with real-life model Nfon Obong and I’d love to see her interact more with people’.

It’s worthy to mention another science fiction film called Surrogates, where people are living their lives remotely from the safety of their own homes via robotic surrogates — with attractive appearance, physically perfect mechanical representations of themselves. This film starts from words of The Prophet: «Look at yourselves. Unplug from your chairs, get up and look in the mirror. What you see is how God made you. We’re not meant to experience the world through a machine».

Digital daydream of looking perfect is developing at times. Maybe someday in the future, we will use of remotely controlled androids called “surrogates” and will choose how they will look like. Presumably, surrogate of Cameron-James Wilson will look like this haute couture Shudu model.