Does Grimes’ digital avatar for The Face predict the future of maternity leave?
Meet ‘WarNymph,’ aka Grimes’ digital avatar
As Grimes releases her new high-tech pop album Miss_Anthorphocene, the 31-year-old musician also unveils a Balenciaga-clad iteration of WarNymph, her ‘Maternity Leave’ avatar and alter-ego, which hatched on social media in January, for the cover of The Face magazine.
The idea is to separate Grimes’ digital persona from her humanity, allowing herself to step out of the spotlight and into the role she says she feels more comfortable in, which is CEO of Grimes.
Grimes explained “WarNymph is my digital avatar, aka my digital self. Everyone is living two lives: their digital life and their offline life. I want to untether my two lives from each other for mental-health purposes, haha. And also, for fun"
What is most interesting is how Grimes' pregnancy, with Elon Musk, has inspired her to live through her digital persona while she can not perform "I’m also pregnant. Having a digital body allows me to keep working throughout the later stages of my pregnancy, and after I have my baby, so I can spend more time with them.”
It's yet to be seen if digital avatars will be the way other singers and star, could continue to perform throughout their pregnancy. But we'd like to be the first to predict a future where everyone's digital avatar could fill in for them now and again.