Hollywood stars playing those legendary roles on the movie screen, and if Premier League or NBA idols weren’t wearing the jerseys of those big clubs, could they be so famous? Can fashion icon mannequins possess the magic charm without carrying those glittering brands on the catwalk? Wouldn’t you want to be in their place too? Those who do not have the same talent and chance although they want it very much, even online, they will now make these dreams come true. They will be able to confront their online social circles with the identity they dream of.
Fierce competition in social media …
Could a sentence of a person be more famous than himself/herself? “One day everyone will be famous for 15 minutes,” said Andy Warhol, the multi-artist of the 20th century. Those who did not even know his work or his name remembered this sentence when social media take the world by storm. In a short time, the majority of social media users entered the race to gain followers for their personal account and become famous in the online social environment. Warhol was right in his prophecy, perhaps unknowingly.
Today everyone is the most famous person of their social media pages. Many have gained fame online with selfie photos and videos that showcase their personal images when no one used to know them. They have become influencer followed by tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands they have never known. While being famous in the digital age has turned into such a big competition, it was not expected to be contented with selfie.
Who would you like to be?
The transparent sharing of generations Y and Z, reaching exhibitionism, was a kind of individual social marketing. With their physical characteristics and lifestyle, they could create an area of interest and attraction and use any means to achieve a fictional attraction. Even marginal ideas and discourses have never been able to attract as many followers as it does. Visual content, whose object is human, always attracted more followers.
The selfie reflected the online individual most prominently and most wanted to be seen, regardless of age and gender. But in this tough social competition environment, everything was getting used to quickly, it was necessary to try new things. Application developers immediately turned to the technology of the age, artificial intelligence. The new opportunity offered to users was “Who do you want to appear as?”. – The new deepfake, more precisely the selffake application on the market, was easily turning everyone into a star. For this, a single-frame selfie was enough.
Deepfake adaptation of Selfie culture; Reface
Dancing like Rihanna, crowning an amazing song with a stage show. Take on the character of Jack Sparrow and set sail on great adventures with the Pirates of the Caribbean. Having the incredibly strong body lines of The Incredible Hulk. Mobile application Reface, the new reflection of the selfie culture, leaves the choice to you. The new deepfake application with ai support, which was first introduced to users under the name Doublicat, provides the fastest and easiest way to produce face swap videos.
According to Roman Mogylnyi, CEO and co-founder of RefaceAI, deepfake technology is just a new step towards synthesized media examples that add artistic value to the imagination. The appeal of the video clips they offer to their users for the face swap is mostly sourcing from famous Hollywood productions, as in the example of Titanic. Reface’s deepfake attributes are supported by machine-learning-based neural networks known as GANs (generative opposing networks). Instead of trying to mask one of the faces on top of the other, Reface creates a new animated face using selfie and target video inputs.
20 million downloads in 100 countries
The Reface team focuses on making deepfake technology, which has been in our lives for 3 years, accessible and easy to use. It offers users it as a smartphone app, without the need for powerful hardware. It transforms from a single selfie almost instantly and turns the selfie into face vectors representing the user’s facial features. So, technology expertise or a lot of effort is not required to achieve a lifelike effect. The posts produced with such a user-friendly application provide users with a powerful social marketing opportunity in the race to acquire followers.
Its usage has grown with great pleasure since Reface added high definition videos in June. Because initially, the app only started with much grainier GIF face swaps. Reface has been downloaded nearly 20 million times by Android and IOS users in 100 countries. On Google Play, the app received close to 150,000 reviews and reached an almost five-star rating.
In the coming era of personalized media, this is just the beginning.
RefaceAI’s CEO, Mogylnyi, sees these deepfakes-based developments as just the beginning, and he points out that the age of personalized media is approaching. Mogylnyi believes that widespread access to synthesized media will enhance human empathy and imagination. According to him, those who interact with this technology will be given the opportunity to indirectly experience things that they would otherwise never have done or have not yet experienced. This rich customization opportunity will also enhance the interaction of producers, artists and athletes with their audiences and followers, which consists of content sharing, which also affects the community. It will also give viewers the experience of getting into and being a part of those content.
RefaceAI’s CEO was also injured while playing basketball during his school years, and his professional career dream in this field fell through. He always wondered how he would feel if his life adventure had extended to the NBA. The platform he entrepreneurs offers his people the opportunity to see and feel himself as a professional basketball player.
Advanced features, after security is provided …
Reface does not allow the possibilities that will cause the risk of spreading by producing malicious and risky content on its platform. For example, you can’t upload your own video to make a deepfake yet. For now, you can choose from pre-loaded famous clips and GIFs that no one can use maliciously. It is already announced that user-generated videos will be available and will allow for all body changes next year. However, before opening the more comprehensive content creation functionality to users, an attempt is made to develop a detection model to reliably detect such content to be created. Mogylnyi says the advanced features will be made available once they are sure they can detect frauds that can be made.
The app is free to download from the App Store or Google Play. As part of in-app subscriptions priced at $ 19.99 per year or $ 2.99 per week for the Pro version, Premium features like removing ads, uploading your own GIFs, removing watermarks and unlimited editing are being offered. However, if you don’t mind the advertisements and time limits that are played while the content is being processed, the free version also works. Because the app allows you to create up to 9 videos or GIFs until it times out after 30 minutes. After creating and downloading your clip, it is possible to share it directly on Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger or Instagram.
Customizes game heroes with Snap, Bitmoji
The race to offer users the ability to customize famous stars, movie, animation or game characters has actually been going on for the past few years. The digital entertainment and gaming industry seems to focus on further customization. For example, Snap announced at the Snap Partner Summit in June that the first games that will benefit from Bitmoji will be released soon. The company, which also owns the famous social media platform Snapchat, announced this feature last year. Bitmoji feature allows you to customize the game heroes with your own animated face. It seems that digital game developers will finally be able to take advantage of this Software Development Kit (SDK). Information about Bitmoji For Games SDK can be found on the website bitmoji.com.
Bitmoji for Games offers cross-platform solution from mobile games to console games and PC games. The problem with console-specific avatars was, for example, the inability to support Xbox avatars on PlayStation consoles. Bitmoji for games can potentially solve this problem. For Bitmoji, their first partners are mobile games on iOS and Android. To transfer your Bitmoji to these games, simply connect to your Snapchat account.
Apple also offers live avatars personalized with Memoji
Apple’s Memoji feature dates back to about two years ago. In September 2017, Apple presented its Animoji set of cartoonish animal characters with the iPhone X model. In June 2018, it made an update and added the Memoji human skin to its Animoji tools.
Thanks to Memoji, which can be used in iPhone X and later models and IPad Pro models, you can turn your face into an animated character. Memoji, which is very similar to Bitmoji, transfers all the features of the face directly to the animated view through the front camera application of smart devices. Not only does it just speak and act like its user, it also allows you to create and share an avatar that looks like its user, raising the bar for online interaction.
From the deepfake threat to the selffake anxiety
The irresistible charm of technology makes people dizzy. It can transform both common perception and value judgments. Until just over a year ago, the fear of “would someone with malicious intent prepare my deepfake and do me harm” was dominant. Now, the concern about “how do I prepare my best selffake” has almost taken its place.
If you also say that you cannot live with fear and anxiety, stimulate your imagination. Go to one of the Selffake apps. Easily prepare your deepfake that will make you incredible, generate the most interaction and gather followers on social media. During the depressive pandemic process, have fun and impress your online audience. In this short life, how far for anxiety, fear?..