“Seventeen, openly virtual, a little naughty, and deadly scared of bananas.” That’s how Bangkok Naughty Boo describes himself. Digital, androgynous, and downright quirky, he’s the first cyber influencer in Thailand and the first non-binary cyber influencer. A computer-generated character designed with a human personality—Naughty Boo is eager to speak his mind.
“I’m Thai but global at heart, created during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, aka the ‘new normal’ era, as a non-binary seventeen-year-old spirit.,” he says. “It’s fine to call me ‘he.’ I’m totally into that. It sounds kinda sexy, right?”
“17 岁，100%虚拟，有点调皮，对香蕉怕得要命。”这是曼谷 Naughty Boo 的自我介绍。他是泰国第一位拟真虚拟网红，也是互联网上第一个非二元性别网红。作为一个完全由电脑生成的虚拟形象，Naughty Boo 渴望说出自己的心声。
他说：“我来自泰国，但内心是个地球人。今年我 17 岁，属于非二元性别，诞生于新冠肺炎疫情爆发期间，也就是‘新常态’时代，我不 Care 你怎么称呼我。怎么样，听起来是不是还蛮性感的？”
Naughty Boo is obsessed with becoming an internet sensation. He’s a hybrid of Lil Miquela, Lady Gaga, and Troye Sivan, with the virtual nature of the first, the fortitude and glamour of the second, and the gentleness of the latter. Like Miquela, he began with an Instagram profile, broadcasting his life through Bangkok’s trendy spots and art galleries, hanging out with other fashionable members of the city’s underground scene.
His facial features are entirely original and developed with a calculated ambiguity that discards racial associations. Even though he appears plausibly human, Naughty Boo’s face is unmistakably rendered. It was never the intention to cover up his digital nature and trick people into believing he’s real. Still, he needs to resemble a living person, so his body is invariably borrowed from a real-life model, someone whose identity will never be revealed.
Naughty Boo 想要成为网红。他和 Lil Miquela 一样，是时下火热的网络拟真偶像，同时兼备 Lady Gaga 的自信和大胆风格，以及 Troye Sivan 的细腻温柔。与许多虚拟偶像一样，他先创建个人 Instagram 页面，然后通过曼谷的时尚圈和艺术画廊宣传，与曼谷非主流时尚人士合照增加热度。
Naughty Boo 的五官完全为原创设计，设计师特意模糊了种族特征。尽管看起来很逼真，但仍然能稍稍看出明显的计算机渲染效果。虽然从未想过要掩盖他的数字本质，让人们误以为他是真人；然而他毕竟是模仿人类而设计，所以身体部分是基于一位真人模特创造的，至于原型的身份，大概会永远成为一个秘密。
Naughty Boo, like many influencers, also has modeling aspirations. He had his first modeling gig in October, in a collaboration between IWANNABANGKOK©, his creators, and stylist Kanit S., all captured by the sharp lens of Kanrapee Chokpaiboon. The goal was maximum fashion lunacy.
In one shot, Naughty Boo appears on all fours in a royal-blue velour bodysuit, a deconstructed red leather skirt, and boots on his hands and feet. In another, he leans on a golden sideboard wearing a leather jacket, spike-laced pants, and fin-like shoes. The shoot was as much about showing off his personality as it was about showcasing the clothes—a gender-fluid collection juxtaposing cuteness and bizarreness that capture the rebellious energy and confidence of disparate youth subcultures around the world.
和很多网红一样，Naughty Boo 也有自己的模特梦想。去年十月份，他第一次做模特，呈现近乎疯狂的时尚风格。该组照片由虚拟偶像创作者 IWANNABANGKOK© 和造型师 Kanit S. 合作，联合摄影师 Kanrapee Chokpaiboon 掌镜。
照片中，Naughty Boo 趴在地上，穿着一件皇家蓝色的天鹅绒紧身衣，一条解构主义风格红色皮裙，手脚都穿上了短靴。另一张照片中，他身穿皮衣，铆钉裤子搭配鱼鳍鞋，倚靠在一个金色餐具柜上。这些照片将他的个性和盘托出，也是在展示一个中性风格的服装系列，糅合可爱与怪奇元素，诠释世界各地不同青年亚文化群体的叛逆与自信。
Shooting a virtual character, however, has its challenges, and they mostly appeared in the post-production phase where Naughty Boo’s creators realized that his face only matched with specific angles, so a lot of good material went wasted.
Six different people across two different teams created Naughty Boo. Visual and sound platform Shapes Shifter tackled all technical and post-production challenges, while everything relating to creative ideation, from content strategy, pre-production, and production, was in the hands of IWANNABANGKOK©, a local community of young creators aiming to rebrand the city’s image through forward-thinking collaborations with local artists and creatives.
然而，拍摄虚拟角色的过程并不轻松，尤其是在后期制作阶段。Naughty Boo 的创作者发现，镜头只能识别特定的角度，很多好的素材被因此废弃。
Naughty Boo 的创作者一共有 6 人，分成两支不同团队。一支团队负责技术和后期工作，另一支团队负责创意构思。从内容策略、前期制作到制作，一切都是由 IWANNABANGKOK© 完成。IWANNABANGKOK© 是由年轻创作者组成的当地团队，旨在通过与当地艺术家和创意人士合作，推出前卫大胆的作品，重塑这座城市的形象。
Naughty Boo is also born from their desire to build a future without binary genders, thus representing the Thai capital as modern, progressive, and free. Beyond global celebrities, his creators concocted Naughty Boo’s persona based on the quirks of different members of their community. They hope that he can influence people by promoting equality, touching mainly on issues around gender, race, and ethnicity. “I want to see humans as world citizens. It’s sad to see us separated into countries. Why can’t we just be humans from earth?” they say.
Still, to achieve these ambitious goals, they first have to reach a nearer objective: to make Naughty Boo a virtual superstar and leverage the wave of virtual influencers, first in Thailand and then abroad.
IWANNABANGKOK© 渴望建立一个没有二元性别的未来，呈现一座现代化、前卫和自由的泰国首都城市。Naughty Boo 也因此而诞生。
在考虑并设计 Naughty Boo 的人格与个性时，除了借鉴一些全球知名人士，他们还综合参考了团队内一些成员的个性。团队希望通过这个虚拟角色，促进平权，解决性别、种族和民族问题。“我希望看到所有人类成为世界公民。明明都是人类，却被划分成不同的国家，这让我很难过。为什么不能把所有人都只看作是地球上的公民呢？”他们说道。
不过，要实现这些雄心勃勃的目标，他们首先必须达到一个更小的目标：让 Naughty Boo成为超级虚拟网红，利用虚拟网红的影响力，从泰国走向世界。
While the project is still in its early days, Naughty Boo has found appeal with people craving new standards—or rather craving de-standardization. The genderqueer movement is increasingly popular among Gen Zs, who value freedom of self-expression over cisgender confinement. Within this movement, fashion and music seem to be the bastions of empowerment, with a growing army of non-binary and transgender influencers in these industries rightfully claiming their space on social media.
Naughty Boo is the first virtual member of this genderqueer army. He also represents a change in narrative for the profitable trend of virtual influencers. As for not actually being human, Naughty Boo is totally fine with it, just as is his growing group of followers. “It’s kind of cool, actually. We’re the new race,” he says.
整个项目才刚开始，Naughty Boo 就已经吸引了一批思想前卫的人群。非二元性别运动在 Z 世代中日益流行，他们注重自由表达，不愿受顺性别（cisgender）观念拘束。在这场运动中，时尚和音乐是主要阵地，你会看到有越来越多的非二元和跨性别人士在社交媒体上发声。
Naughty Boo 是非二元性别群体里的第一位虚拟成员，也是全球虚拟偶像的家庭成员，他们共同制定着网红的新规则。而无论是 Naughty Boo 自己，还是他日益增长的粉丝们，身份和标签对于他们来说似乎并不重要， “事实上，这其实还挺酷的，我们算得上是新新‘人类’了。”他说。
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Instagram: @bangkoknaughtyboo
Contributors: Tomas Pinheiro, Lucas Tinoco
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li
