Juan Villoro
As the political class deteriorates, robotics improves. Leaders lose their charisma and scruples while machines learn to behave. It is logical, then, that candidates for elected office should try to improve themselves with the help of digital resources. For some time now, publicists have been using Photoshop to reduce their clients’ double chins and wrinkles. But technology now offers remedies that go beyond cosmetic retouching.
In her book Doppelganger: A Journey into the Mirror World, Canadian journalist Naomi Klein discusses “digital doubles” and mentions the case of Stephen K. Bannon, who, after leading Trump’s first presidential campaign, became an advisor to authoritarian and neo-fascist movements in Brazil and Italy.
Klein notes that, at the beginning of the 21st century, Bannon worked for Affinity Media, a Hong Kong-based company that designs electronic games. There, he discovered that users considered the games to be more real than life and that the avatars had a more defined identity than their own. In that space, a gray office worker could become an action hero. The paradox is that the digital character was perceived as more authentic than the user.
Identifying with an imaginary double can have positive effects. According to recent studies, having a dynamic avatar temperament can help you exercise more. However, allowing a game character to be your role model also carries risks.
When Bannon discovered the attraction that avatars exert on people, he did not think about improving the lives of sad citizens who required an illusory alternate existence, but rather about immersing them full-time in that fantasy realm. According to Klein, the political strategist did not see the creation of avatars as a desperate escape from normality, but as a profitable political goal.
On January 6, 2021, numerous Donald Trump supporters broke the law and stormed the Capitol in protest of the election results. Almost all of them were dressed up as ultra-patriots or superheroes. They had become the avatars that represent them in cyber games!
The imitation virus has spread. As young people spend more time on screens than in the real world, the best tactic to woo them is digital. Many politicians make fools of themselves on TikTok to appear likable to those who enjoy watching videos of people slipping up.
In 2022, the issue took on particular relevance in one of the world’s most connected countries: South Korea. Conservative Yoon Suk-yeol won the presidential election thanks to the youth vote, which was influenced by the candidate’s avatar, Al Yoon, created by the company DeepBrain.
Significantly, the campaign team did not pretend that Al Yoon was a faithful copy of its model; it frankly clarified that it was an artificial creation. That did not prevent it from being seen as more authentic by young people whose second nature is digital. Al Yoon was a more sensitive, thoughtful, witty, and empathetic version of the flesh-and-blood politician who sweated in front of the cameras and bored everyone in debates.
The disastrous fauna that stars in our Congress shows how easy it is to improve politicians with digital avatars. Al Yoon won the votes that would not have gone to the mediocre Yoon Suk-yeol.
Once he reached the presidency, Suk-yeol forgot that he had won thanks to what he was not. He could have entrusted his decisions to the artificial intelligence that brought him to power. Still, unlike those who go to the gym motivated by their digital clone, he did not imitate the virtues of his reflection: intoxicated with power, he felt he was… his own double! With the monomania typical of an avatar, he gave in to his authoritarian impulses, despised his opponents, and on December 3, 2024, he proclaimed martial law. Fortunately, his country still had checks and balances: he was impeached by Congress in April 2025.
Yoon Suk-yeol’s brief presidency warns against the use of avatars in politics, as voters do not vote for a candidate but for their uncertain reflection. Furthermore, the winner succumbs to Narcissus’ temptation: he falls in love with the face he sees on the surface of the water and drowns with it.
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