Note: The primary source for this article, Wired, was unavailable at review time due to access restrictions. All claims below are attributed to Wired’s reporting and have not been independently verified.
A network of creators producing AI-generated male personas for Instagram drew attention after two of their characters — “Santos Walker” and “Caleb Ellis” — appeared in images resembling a red carpet appearance at the premiere of The Devil Wears Prada 2. Wired reports it confirmed with the creator of the “Santos” account that the image was made without involvement from 20th Century Studios. The post was not sponsored content, Wired reports.
Wired’s reporting profiles the community through Luc Thierry, described as the Canadian creator behind “Jae Young Joon,” an AI persona Wired says has more than 320,000 Instagram followers.
Disclosure
Wired reports that Jae’s Instagram account carries a bio reading “Human mind. AI generated,” and that Thierry says he has been transparent about the persona’s artificial nature from the start. Despite that, Wired reports, Thierry regularly receives messages from followers who appear not to have registered the disclosure. Wired reports Thierry described this as his biggest moral dilemma.
Wired reports Thierry compared the situation to a TV show in which the fourth wall is not broken mid-episode, and that he hopes followers who engage as though Jae is real are choosing to role-play rather than being genuinely deceived — drawing a comparison to parasocial relationships with video game or TV characters.
Wired reports Thierry began creating AI-generated profiles in the summer of 2024, partly motivated by burnout from content production under his own name. The Jae account, Wired states, had 700 followers until a Reel got approximately 20 million views.
The creator community
Wired reports that the Santos red carpet post triggered discussion about whether AI-generated influencers were deceiving audiences and about body standards — Santos, Caleb, and Jae are described by Wired as having what the article calls “comically bulky frames.”
Wired reports the creators behind these accounts know each other and operate a group chat started by the creator of “Romeo DeSouza,” described as a Dutch-Brazilian AI persona with 56,000 followers. Wired reports Thierry described the group as a safe space for dealing with backlash, noting that most people outside the community would not understand the experience of having an AI influencer account bullied.
Wired notes Thierry describes the audience for his content as primarily female, which he describes as a surprise — he created Jae with a gay male audience in mind.
Income and brand relationships
Wired reports none of the creators are making significant money. Wired reports Thierry said he has made a few thousand dollars, mostly from Spotify and the subscription platform Fanvue. One campaign in which “Santos” tagged the swimwear brand Charlie by MZ drew backlash that led the brand to remove the post, Wired reports.
Wired notes Thierry is building toward a more formalized structure, including an AI modeling agency called Born2BeAI and a community for gay AI male models called Virtuomo.
Wired provides context that AI-generated influencers are already active at larger scale — noting Lil Miquela, a long-running AI persona with more than 2 million followers that has landed brand deals, as a reference point for a space where rules around disclosure and brand accountability are not yet settled.