15 minutes of fame

MyIdol is an app that generates 3D avatars (cartoon versions of yourself) using photos of your face. It lets you customize your avatar with different clothes and accessories. It even lets you animate your avatar in different scenes, like pole dancing.

Oh god. I’ve created a monster.

You create an avatar by importing a photo from your iPhone’s camera roll or by taking a selfie. The app scans your photo for a face and will intelligently detect where your eyes, nose, and mouth are. 

The app is surprisingly great at facial recognition, though it does take it a while to finish scanning. After your photo is imported, you can move little pointers around to fine tune where your eyes, nose, and mouth are. Then the fun begins.

MyIdol wraps your 2D picture around a 3D avatar to great effect. You can move the avatar around to see different angles and you can customize your creation with different outfits and actions.

For extra weirdness, try importing your dog’s face. Warning: you will be disturbed. Ever wanted to see your dog pole dance? Well now you can, you sick bastard.

Now in English… mostly

Originally the app was mostly in Chinese – making navigating its menus hit and miss. Now, however, thanks to its popularity in other countries, many (but not all) of its menus have been translated into English and a greater emphasis placed on icons. That said, the opening video tutorial is still all in Chinese – though everything it tells you is clearly explained when you start using the app for the first time.

The app is easy to use, with a myriad of sliders to customize your avatar. You can put him/her/it in a scene, including an extremely creepy stripper mode. Unfortunately, many additional items of clothing and backgrounds are not automatically installed, so need to download when selected.

It’s fun for about 15 minutes until you realize how pointless this whole app is. I guess people just love taking pictures of them themselves and showing them off. If you do enjoy this though, you will be pleased to hear that its easy to the upload images, short videos, and gifs you create in MyIdol directly to Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks, in-app.

The Chinese version of JibJab

If you remember JibJab, both companies achieved the same thing. Put peoples’ faces on a funny avatar and make them do wacky stuff. It’s fun for a short amount of time before you realize no one cares. And that you just wasted real money on buying virtual clothes for a 3D avatar. 

Please stop posting videos and photos of your MyIdol on Facebook. No one cares.