Who's Seraphine and what's the drama?

In June 2020 a mysterious digitally drawn pink-haired girl appeared on Instagram and Twitter, telling the world she wants to share her music and connect with people.

Meet Seraphine, a virtual influencer created by Riot Games to market their new playable character that goes by the same name in their game League of Legends. Seraphine is an LA-based aspiring songwriter and producer who shares snippets of her daily life on her social media, including pictures of her cat, drawings in her journal and details about her music career. Her Twitter account was created in June 2020 and her first photo was uploaded to Instagram in the same month on the 26th. She's also on SoundCloud and Spotify. 

Even though her origins or creator wasn’t stated anywhere in her profiles to begin with, it was quite early on that the fans of League figured out she has something to do with the game. It started with people noticing the character's art style was similar to LoL's and bit by bit Seraphine was dropping hints the fans would notice. For example one of these details was in a picture she posted on Instagram August 12 with another LoL character Annie's teddy bear Tibbers in the background:

To make sure you get the idea, here's Tibbers as seen in an official video about Annie's origins:

As Seraphine's not real there’s obviously a bigger agenda behind all this. Using Instagram and Twitter like a real human has helped create a great amount of hype and speculation around her, as post by post she’s been revealing more about her goals and existence. The post with most engagement by now has been the one where she revealed she’s going to collaborate with K/DA, a virtual music group consisting of four more characters of League of Legends. This was also something that fans were expecting since there were many signs pointing to it.

K/DA is a heavily K-Pop-inspired group consisting of Ahri, Akali, Kai'Sa and Evelynn, who are also playable characters in LoL. The group was unveiled in 2018 League of Legends World Championship Opening Ceremony with their debut single POP/STARS and it was a huge success, catering to fans of League but also to K-Pop enthusiasts who didn't necessarily know anything about the game. To be clear, the characters in the actual game have another backstory and their K/DA versions belong to a kind of an "alternate universe". One point of this is to sell so-called skins that serve to change the look of the character in-game. 

When the long-speculated collaboration between Seraphine and K/DA was finally confirmed Riot also started releasing chapters of a comic explaining the backstory of how Seraphine was found by K/DA and what is going to happen next.

The picture Seraphine uploaded to announce her collab with K/DA.

Up until recently Seraphine's been interacting with her fans quite a bit and they have been over the moon. She has not only answered her fans’ comments on social media but also asked them for help / inspiration / motivational messages in various posts. She’s also been sharing fanart of her on her Instagram and other indie artists’ music on Twitter. On October 11 she also posted a photo of a cork board with printed out supportive messages she received from her fans on Twitter, giving thanks to the loving community she has. 

All in all it’s a very interesting strategy for a game company to get their fans emotionally invested in a character by making her seem like “one of us” and dropping hints here and there of what might be her next move. Right now she's headed to Shanghai with K/DA to perform in the final of League of Legends World Championship, which is obviously the main goal for the hype apart from releasing the new character.

Seraphine's possible skillset was leaked in late September and on October 13 Seraphine’s character, or champion as they’re called in the game, hit the Public Beta Environment. Now that people actually know more about her unique abilities in the game, her playability and backstory that was released on League’s official website, there has been a very noticeable backlash from fans. Many criticise her for being just a copy of Sona, who's one of the older champions with similar skills and a music theme. The engagement of Seraphine's Instagram photos seems to be going down as well. Many people are disappointed and don’t think the hype was worth it. Every day more haters are showing up and the latest comments on almost all her photos are from disappointed fans calling her "Sona 2.0".

Seraphine posted this picture on Instagram on October 13, with the caption "look how far we've come, you and i". Here's what you can find in the comment section:

The truth is, without having played the game I had no idea who is this Skarner and what Seraphine supposedly did to his people. I did read Seraphine's lore on the official website, and digging a bit more around the internet I think I finally understand what's going on.

On the official website Skarner's described as follows:

Skarner is an immense crystalline scorpion from a hidden valley in Shurima. Part of the ancient Brackern race, Skarner and his kin are known for their great wisdom and deep connection to the land, as their souls are fused with powerful life crystals which hold the living thoughts and memories of their ancestors. In an age long past, the Brackern entered hibernation to avoid untold magical destruction, but recent, threatening events have roused Skarner. As the only Brackern awake, he strives to protect his kind from those who seek to harm them.

According to Seraphine's backstory, she can actually hear the emotions of people around her. This also applies to the Brackern crystals and as song is very important to them, in Seraphine's lore it is mentioned she connects deeply with one of them in particular, gets lost in its song and, in the process, learns to handle her power. And based on all the comments I've seen the haters say that makes her a psycopath and an assassin. Um. Okay.

TL;DR the hype turned into drama overnight and now the internet's full of memes about how Seraphine is just another Sona and Riot's only trying to make money with her and the skins they're releasing for her.

Oh Twitter...

However I would say this strategy has worked like a charm in getting people’s attention as even many of those who don’t play the game seem to be aware of the phenomenon she’s become, myself included. I'm so deep in this I can't get out anymore and might or might not have downloaded the game in the end. Haha. Help.

All images in the post belong to Riot Games unless otherwise stated.