This week I met a pop star who doesn’t exist. At least not in the real world!

Ice Bear may be a rising social media star with 1.6 million followers on TikTok and millions of views on YouTube, but to “meet” her, you have to enter the metaverse, or rather, my own hyper-real digital avatar, Bernard 2.0 did it.

The true analog self had to make do with talking to one of Polar’s creators, Patrik Wilkens, vice president of operations at TheSoul, the agency responsible for creating the latest virtual pop star that could top the charts.

Virtual pop stars are not a new phenomenon. What is new are the avenues that are now available for us to interact with them. For me, the most…