- Who
- BLACKPINK
- What
- first first
- Where
- Not Applicable ()
- When
In a nod to the rise of K-pop’s virtual girl groups, the hyper-real avatars of South Korea’s chart-topping vocal/rap sensations BLACKPINK won the inaugural prize for Best Metaverse Performance at the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) when the annual ceremony stopped off at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, USA, on 28 August 2022. In July 2022, virtual renditions of Jennie, Jisoo, Lisa and Rosé sang and danced their way through a complimentary in-game concert – BLACKPINK: The Virtual – in Tencent Games’ multiplayer PUBG [PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds] Mobile (2018), teleporting to different locations in the game’s universe and taking the opportunity to introduce a brand-new track called “Ready for Love”.
The other nominations for the brand-new category – which reportedly attracted more than 320 million votes – were BTS (Minecraft/YouTube), Rift Tour feat. Ariana Grande (Fortnite), Justin Bieber – An Interactive Virtual Experience (Wave) and two performances from the gaming platform Roblox: Charli XCX and the Twenty One Pilots Concert Experience.
The virtual idol group ETERN!TY, an 11-piece collective who released “I’m Real”, their ironically titled debut single, in March 2021, and South Korean human all-girl groups like aespa and Billlie (stylized Bi11lie) have embraced AI technology and have virtual counterparts that can perform concerts, star in videos, conduct live chats and throw fan parties across time zones and language barriers – all without exposing their human bandmates to the physical and mental demands of the music industry.
According to projections by the Canadian market consulting company Emergen Research, the digital human and avatar market is estimated to reach $527.58 billion (£431.74 billion) globally by 2030.
