No.64 Persona

"A child often sees comic characters as their own standing, living a much better life. Now, if you think about it, Social Media has made this a reality.

On this months cover is the band Gorillaz; I wonder how many readers know the group, regarded as the world's first successful virtual band. Masterminds Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett hide behind virtual band members 2-D, Murdoc Niccals, Noodle and Russel Hobbs. While the audience hears their rock and roll music, they see a cartoon image onstage. Nowadays, this doesn't sound like anything incredible; but, when Gorillaz was established in 1998 - a full 18 years ago - many things we take for granted did not exist, such as microblogging, Instagram, and FaceBook. Even eMail had hardly caught on, as the Internet was in it's early stages of existence. And now, almost 20 years later, Gorillaz has yet another upcoming album - and Numero Metropolis is the first to cooperate with them, having interviewed Noodle and featured her on the front cover. The experience has been both interesting, and strenuous.

I grew up watching less TV than reading comics or novels. The fictional character was always relatively simple. By contrast, real people in front of the camera always felt fake, leaving me skeptical. The same can be said for any Social Networking platform. Consider the face of modern daily life, as well as the face of the Social image, and it's easy to see that the face online has grown most important. In the network, you have an "audience", giving you an all-new virtual identity for people to like.

These days, we face the computer more than we face another person; and this is only growing more and more true. In the end, what is real? What is virtual? The answer is clear.