Facebook Launch Avatars Bitmoji, for Messenger

Facebook’s just lunch new Generic emoji Avatars feature lets you customize a virtual lookalike of yourself for use as stickers in chat and comments. Once you personalize your Avatar’s face, hair, and clothes, they’ll star in a range of frequently updated stickers conveying common emotions and phrases.

From Likes to Reactions to Avatars, you could see this as the natural progression of self-expression on Facebook…or as a ruthless clone of Snapchat’s wildly popular Bitmoji selfie stickers.

Facebook Avatars launches today in Australia for use in Messenger and News Feed comments before coming to the rest of the world in late 2019 or early 2020. The feature could make Facebook feel more fun, youthful, and visually communicative at a time when the 15-year-old social network increasingly seems drab and uncool. Avatars aren’t quite as cute or hip to modern slang as Bitmoji. But they could still become a popular way to add some flare to replies without resorting to cookie-cutter emoticons or cliche GIFs.

“There’s been a ton of work put into this from the product and design perspective to find out, with how many people on Facebook, how to make this as representative as possible,” says Facebook Avatars communication manager Jimmy Raimo. From offering religious clothing like hijabs to a rainbow of skin colors and hairstyles, Facebook didn’t want any demographic left out. “They’re a bit more realistic so they can be your personal avatar vs trying to make them cute, funny, and cartoony” Raimo explains.

How To Make A Facebook Avatar
Users will start to see a smiley-face button in the News Feed comment composer and Messenger sticker chooser they can tap to create their Facebook Avatar. For now, only people in Australia can make Avatars but everyone will be able to see them around Facebook.

The creation process begins with gender neutral blank people can customize from scratch across 18 traits. For now, there’s no option to start with a selfie or profile pic and have Facebook automatically generate you an avatar. Facebook is researching that technique, but Raimo acknowledges that “We want to make sure we don’t show you something totally opposite of the photo. There’s sensitivity around facial recognition.”

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