“It doesn’t even look real, so why watch it?”…Why we are more drawn to ‘fake characters’ than to people - 경향신문

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These days, when you scroll through social networking services (SNS), unreal content often catches your eye. Animals appear where people would normally be. A dog wears designer clothes and shoots a fashion editorial, a cat breaks into flashy dance moves, and a dog bakes bread at a bakery. Some are actual photos of pets, but many are AI-made animals. From fashion and food to advertising and memes, the genre doesn’t matter. Paradoxically, as the AI era opens, animals are becoming the protagonists on screen more often than humans.

The British daily the Guardian recently reported that this trend is unfolding not only on SNS but also in traditional magazines. The September 2026 British and U.S. editions of Vogue featured celebrities such as actor Nicole Kidman, Kaia Gerber, and Homer Gehr on their covers. But online, what drew a warmer response than the Vogue covers was the magazine ‘Dogue,’ which put dogs center stage. Bad Bunny’s beagle Sansa Martinez Berlingeri and Lena Dunham’s pet dog, among others, graced the covers of the fashion mag. The Guardian described it as, “In the age of AI faces, dogs are taking over fashion’s covers.”

So why have animal AIs seized SNS algorithms and trends? The answer is surprisingly simple: human faces have become too perfect.

Humans generated by today’s AI present smooth, blemish-free, youthful, and balanced faces. Real people’s faces, too, are becoming similar as filters and retouching tools are applied. The monotonous, poreless face the New Yorker dubbed “Instagram Face” in 2019 has become even more extreme in the AI era.

Here’s the problem. Now, even when we look at a person’s photo, the first thought is, “Is it real?” It has become hard to tell whether it’s a real model, an AI-generated person, or how much the face has been altered. Social media expert Jen Golbeck told the Guardian that as AI-made images proliferate, people feel they ‘no longer know what’s real.’ Indeed, AI models who don’t exist in reality are appearing.

Video of a dancing AI cat. SNS screenshot

Dogs and cats are different. Even if a dog on screen looks a bit goofy or its fur is a mess, people accept it as natural. No perfectly symmetrical face or glassy skin is required. Even if its tongue is out or one ear is folded, the first reaction is “cute.”

Above all, animals don’t come with the pile of information that clings to humans. We don’t need to ask whose child they are, what their politics are, how old they are, whether they’ve had cosmetic surgery, what their body looks like, or what class they belong to. That’s why the Guardian called dogs ‘egoless’ beings. Oli Port, the founder of Dogue, cited as an appeal that, unlike humans, dogs don’t put their egos forward and are simply interested in treats.

These traits are especially powerful in the age of SNS. Animals also face relatively low barriers of language and culture. A dog in a suit, a cat with a designer bag, or a dog making pasta at a restaurant needs little explanation to be understood at a glance. And when we see animals behaving like humans, we recall human behavior and laugh.

Research on virtual influencers likewise finds that the degree of anthropomorphism boosts user engagement. A study in the Journal of Consumer Marketing (2025) analyzed 21,725 posts by 109 Instagram virtual influencers and an experiment with 643 participants, concluding that the stronger the traits that make animals feel human-like, the more user engagement increases.

It also helps that animals are already a potent source of content on SNS. A 2023 study in the Journal of Business Research found that ‘nonhuman influencers’including animals, plants, toys, robots, and characterscan attract user interest and relationships in ways similar to human influencers. The more animals are made to act like humans, the more familiarity and fun are added.

That’s why animals are quite an ideal protagonist for AI. They’re cute, instantly understood, travel across national and linguistic lines, stir up less controversy than humans, and even when made a bit strange, they become fun. This is why they can be used so widely, from fashion editorials and food videos to ads and memes.

In particular, fatigue with ‘perfection’ has grown lately. In fashion, people have grown tired both of celebrities’ overly retouched faces and of the so-called ‘nepo baby’ (nepo baby· children who ride on their famous parents’ halo). The Guardian noted that, in this climate, dogs stand a step removed from debates over politics, looks, and class. Humans are trailed by all kinds of social norms about appearance, bodies, and fashion, but dogs carry no such burden.

What’s interesting is that the more AI makes humans look convincing, the more nonhuman beings come to feel ‘real’​. The technology to create humans who don’t exist in reality is advancing fast. Faces, rsums, and bodies can all be fabricated. Meanwhile, a dog on screen may be a photo of a real animal or an AI-made fake, but at least what we expect from animals isn’t a perfectly curated life story like a human’s. One funny expression or a single crooked ear is enough.

So why does AI content featuring babies or children stand out less by comparison? It’s not simply a dfference in cuteness. Making and altering human children’s faces with AI raises far more sensitive issuesnot just portrait and personal information rights but also sexualization and identity theft. As AI imaging technology advances, calls to strengthen protections for children’s images are growing.

Ultimately, the animal boom in the AI era can’t be explained by a fad for mere ‘cuteness.’ As AI renders human faces too perfect, people have started to feel comfortable with imperfection. U.K. social media consultant Matt Navarra told the BBC that “AI has made it easy for influencers to create ‘fantastical, high-gloss aesthetic content’ that’s hard to produce in real life,” adding, “In a flood of AI images, some creators are instead emphasizing their ‘real selves.’” A tongue-lolling dog feels friendlier than a poreless face, and a cat with spiky fur feels closer than a perfect-bodied virtual model, for reasons not unrelated to this shift.

As AI grows more human-like, we may, in a way, be drifting away from humanity. Content creator Maddy Mathers warned, “People are increasingly believing AI-made videos and photos are real,” and, “The more such images proliferate, the less people may know what to believe.” In an age flooded with overly convincing fakes, people may have become more forgiving toward animals that put the mind at easeeven if they don’t exist in realitythan toward perfectly crafted humans.