Debuted in August 2020, the annual income in 2021 is 8.03 million yuan.
Author: Yiyi
In August 2020, a good-looking, tall girl turned out on Instagram, and a photo of a skydiving attracted the attention of many netizens.
The sweltering heat of August is the beginning of the summer vacation for Korean office workers. But at the time, South Korea was under national control due to the introduction of the Delta virus, and many people had to cancel the summer vacation that had been carefully planned for a long time.
Outdoor activities with stimulating elements such as skydiving, bungee jumping, and paragliding are popular among young people, and the appearance of such a photo has played a role in replacing satisfaction.
Rozy runs his Ins account as meticulously as any other influencer, not only interacting with followers of the message, but also uploading two photos a week to maintain its popularity.
At this time, netizens did not know Rozy's true identity, and many fans left messages praising Rozy as "handsome!" "So charming", "Home decoration and dressing style is exactly what I like", etc., the number of fans reached 13,000 in just 3 months.
When his virtual avatar identity was officially revealed at the end of December, his fans increased by 10,000, and after his first appearance, the number of fans reached 44,000, and now the number of fans is 113,000, and the annual income is as high as 8.03 million.
The birth of Rozy, Korea's first virtual artist
Rozy is a new project co-founded by Director Baek Seung-yeol, who is in charge of Marketing Locus, and Yulina Lee, who makes the game PV. Loxus is a VFX studio specializing in advertising production, game PV production, TV series VFX production, multimedia production, animation studio that produces animated films and TV animations, and Sidus Pictures, which distributes films.
When the two men saw the British virtual model Shudu appear at the Autumn Show of french brand Balman in 2018, they had the idea of creating a Korean virtual influencer and founded a new studio in Loxus, Sidus Studio X.
After the establishment of the studio, the two spent a year conceiving, and officially set out to create Korea's first virtual influencer from January 2020.
(From left, representative Sidus Baek Seung-yeol, Cha Eun-young CD, Rozy, Director Kim Jin-so, Director Lee Yu-na, Author Lee Min-hye)
After referring to the faces of famous people at home and abroad loved by the MZ generation, they finally decided to create a face that was in line with both male and female aesthetics, neutral and slightly individual. After 6 months of 3D production, complemented by 800 elaborate emoticons, Rozy was officially unveiled in August.
When he first opened his account on August 19, Rozy, like everyone else, sent out multiple photos of his travels with personality. After having a steady number of fans, Rozy's operator decided to make photos around the four themes of fashion, travel, environment, and daily life, and publish them regularly, setting Rozy's people as young people who are concerned about environmental issues.
It is understood that it takes about 2 days to make a photo that is difficult to distinguish between true and false, and the decision to upload what kind of photo, and what kind of story is behind the photo, is decided by the 20-year-old female employees who are similar to The age of Rozy to ensure the authenticity of their designs.
At this time, Rozy was still an ordinary Internet celebrity, and he had also cooperated with Shudu in the Uk across the sea. At this time, Shudu was already a well-known and influential supermodel, and Rozy was just a well-known Internet celebrity in South Korea.
In this collaboration, Shudu wore a costume with Hanbok elements, and Rozy wore a dress with African national costume elements for 3 months to finally produce a pictorial newspaper in the same frame.
So how did Rozy get out of the loop?
On July 1, 2021, Shinhan Life (Shinhan Life), which was officially established after the merger of Shinhan Life and Orange Life, decided to shoot a very attractive advertisement in order to attract MZ generation users to apply.
But at this time in the Korean entertainment industry, some people were deeply involved in the scandal of school bullying, some people were rumored to have internal relations with the team, some people drank and drove, and some people were suspected of sexual harassment... Even if you choose an artist who is free of scandals, there is still no guarantee that the artist will never be stained or will not make mistakes in the future.
In order to be foolproof, Shinhan Insurance decided to boldly launch Rozy, a virtual internet celebrity who has made a name for itself on Ins and is highly topical. After the advertisement was broadcast on the temple audition, the protagonist inside, who was full of vitality and danced naturally without losing the idol, quickly attracted the attention of many people, and they all explored the true identity of this emerging advertising model. And this protagonist is the virtual Internet celebrity Rozy.
(The ad also won the MAX Summit 2021 award.) ）
Before the commercial aired, Rozy's operation team ran into a wall in order to build Rozy, but after that, it received more than 70 cooperation offers at once, which can be described as a hit.
Companies that come to shoot advertisements or endorsement products cover fashion, automotive, environmental protection-related companies, technology and many other fields. Even its value doubled in the signing of the second TV commercial. More than 100 commercials were filmed last year (including TV commercials, posters, INS sponsorships, etc.).
Due to the explosion of Rozy, Sidus Studio X revealed that it will start to produce male virtual people in 2021, and there have been investors who have invited to shoot commercials in advance.
So as a virtual influencer, has Rozy managed to avoid the "uncanny valley" (the uncanny valley theory is a hypothesis about how humans feel about robots and non-human objects)?
Although he occasionally saw some comments that slandered Rozy's non-human identity under his Ins account, the messages expressing love and envy accounted for the vast majority.
So how did Rozy avoid the "uncanny valley"?
Sidus Studio X said that this is mainly due to the changes of the times, the progress of science and technology has made people's communication style different from the past, so more people think that Rozy is an "ordinary Internet celebrity" who can communicate with us (real people), rather than a non-my -personal "virtual Internet celebrity". The love and pursuit of real Internet celebrities in the same industry has earned them a lot of passers-by.
Virtual people are popular and become a key factor in financing
Why is it that in South Korea, where entertainment is paramount and even ridiculed as a star everywhere on the streets of Gangnam, a virtual person like Rozy is so popular?
Mature social networking environment
In fact, even real influencers communicate with fans through social networking platforms. SNS not only closes the distance between people and "people", but also alienates the distance between people and "people".
Therefore, in the same operation mode, it does not matter whether the opposite is a real person or a virtual person.
Human operations and artificial beauty
From the appearance point of view, some people spend a lot of money and time to maintain beauty, and some people spend money and time to transform in order to pursue beauty. Then the faces created by humans from the beginning are almost no different from the faces that have been transformed in the eyes of many young people. It also makes it easier for people of generation MZ (those born in the 1980s to early 2000s) to easily accept virtual people.
From the perspective of human settings, many actors are loved for the roles they play in a certain work, and even the actors who play the roles have gained popularity. Idol groups also have a professional team to create a setting and world view for each member that is in line with their image and the market. Artists who starred in variety shows also have professional screenwriters to shape them. From this point of view, virtual people are not particularly different from these actors, idols, and artists.
There is no black history
The entertainment industry has not always been a peaceful circle, the first second is still a popular artist in the sky, and the next second may be exposed to the past black history and be scolded.
In recent years, the Korean entertainment industry has successively exploded many scandals such as drunk driving, sexual assault, PUA, school bullying, drug abuse, and "matchmaking".
But Rozy was 22 years old when he was born, and there was no potential for bullying in school without going to school. Without a real shell, you will not drink and drive or sexually assault others. Although it is possible to PUA someone through language, unlike real people who have a certain amount of private time, Rozy's every move is under the control of a team, and the people in the team will supervise and examine each other to avoid mistakes.
In addition, Rozy's setting also adds elements of loving the environment and protecting the environment. In today's environment, in addition to a good face and an enviable figure, such a public welfare image that can resonate and is easily recognized is more acceptable.
And Rozy, as a virtual person, does not need to eat, does not need to travel by means of transportation, does not need to turn on air conditioning to heat or drive heat, and can be said to truly achieve zero energy consumption and zero energy emissions.
Rozy, who has won the title of South Korea's first virtual artist, successfully introduced new capital to its parent company Loxus at the end of 2021, and Naver Webtoon bought a 52.19% stake for 23.5 billion won (125 million yuan), becoming the controlling shareholder of Luxus.
Previously, Locus successfully produced a TV series based on Naver Webtoon's "Feminine Cell Boy" that combines CG technology and live-action interpretation. Naver Webtoon's move is to make full use of Locus's mature experience and technology in animation and CG production, and adapt its web comic IP into animation works, in addition to achieving synergy with ZEPETO.