It's not far from the themes of SM Entertainment's new girl group aespa, where each member has a League of Legends -style avatar they're linked with, a metaphor for the play of their social media buzz versus their actual selves. But, in the current incarnation of UNIVERSE, where the AI is deployed as a means of removing the idol's own input into their fans—labour-saving machinery for the friendship factory—it only reinforces the distance between idol and fan. There's a reason why most of the fans download UNIVERSE only to use videos of the stars performing songs, dancing, and doing silly things while being themselves.