How a Toy Version of Me Helped Me Think About the Internet (Seriously) | Thomas Kassian Transliteration of Critical Analysis for Blog

How a Toy Version of Me Helped Me Think About the Internet (Seriously)

It started with a curious click and a hyperrealistic AI portrait. Not a selfie, not a photo… this eerie in between.

Thanks to AI tools like Adobe Firefly, I began an experiment in self-representation. First, a 3D render of myself at my desk, surrounded by softly glowing screens, books, and coffee cups. Cinematic lighting, probably slightly more flattering than real life, but believable enough to feel… real. It was uncanny but still feels "off".

Next, I leaned into the whimsical. I asked Firefly to turn me into a Studio Ghibli character—Thomas Kassian in a cozy forest library, lit by floating emoji spirits and glowing books. It felt like I’d stepped into a watercolor dream. Playful, cozy, and still somehow recognizable. This “Ghiblification” trend has taken off online as a way to imagine oneself in softer, kinder worlds (Quach, 2025). It was charming. But I wasn’t done.

Then came the toy.

Let me introduce you to "Thomas Kassian: Digital Media Enthusiast," a limited-edition collectible from the universe of AI-generated selfhood. He comes complete with a cardigan, graphic tee, and the world’s tiniest notepad. Accessories include a laptop, plush emoji, toy ballot box, and speech bubble stickers…everything a municipal strategist-slash-communications nerd could need.

I didn’t think I’d find myself trapped in a plastic bubble this semester, but here we are.

Becoming the Blister-Pack Version of Myself

I used Firefly and ChatGPT to create this action figure, a stylized, cartoonish selfie reimagined as a toy. I wanted to lean into humour, joy, and simplicity. Not the kind of polished, hyperrealistic aesthetic you'd find in corporate branding, but something unmistakably playful and digital. This toy version wasn’t about capturing “truth”... it was about making something that felt true.

The process involved generating prompts, refining styles, and balancing my visual identity with the quirks of AI design. One of the most fun parts was choosing the visual metaphor: instead of realism, I went for the toy aisle. There’s something comforting (and hilarious) about seeing yourself immortalized in blister packaging. According to Real Simple (2025), this trend, creating AI-generated action figures, has become a viral way for people to visualize themselves with a wink.

Strangely, the further I moved from realism, the more I started to see myself. Not in the mirror-like detail of the 3D render, but in the feeling. The Ghibli version captured my whimsy, and the action figure tapped into my quirks and humour. These digital avatars weren’t just alternate versions of me; they became little vessels of self-understanding. Their unreality gave me space to reflect more honestly on the roles I perform online, and the ones I enjoy performing.

From Toy Shelf to Transliteracy

The fun part is that it doesn’t feel fake. It’s me. Sort of. It reflects how our representations online can feel real because they carry relational and rhetorical weight. They don’t need to mirror our “true” selves—they do something. This one made me laugh and then made me think.

In Wu et al.'s (2021) study on recursive AI summarization, the model builds an interpretation of a book by stacking smaller summaries together. That’s kind of what I did with this selfie: took little signals (hair, outfit, tone, tools) and stacked them into something coherent. Or at least cohesive.

Benson (2022) reminds us that representations of AI, especially fictional ones, have the power to distort or clarify our expectations. While mine isn’t threatening to overthrow humanity, it still raises questions: What happens when we stylize ourselves too much? Who owns this image? What happens to the line between documentation and performance?

Making the Serious Silly (and Vice Versa)

The best part of this assignment was letting go of the need to sound academic. Transliteration meant I could get weird, be creative, and still reflect deeply on what we’ve been learning. Turning my essay into a blog post felt less like dumbing it down and more like remixing it for a different platform. (McLuhan would approve: the medium changed the message.)

Ethically, I still wrestle with the use of AI tools. I generated this with care, aware of the labour and data sets behind it. The technology is exciting, but not neutral. I want to engage critically without becoming cynical, which this course has helped me practice.

Final Thoughts from the Toy Aisle

The action figure is funny, yes. But it’s also a snapshot of where digital storytelling is going. We are all narrating ourselves online in some form, through images, bios, posts, and yes, even AI avatars.

In packaging myself like this, I saw the joy in creating, the clarity in playful reflection, and the tension in choosing which parts of me to highlight.

And that, in the end, feels like an honest selfie.

References

Benson, D. C. (2022). AI in fiction and the future of war. The Strategy Bridge. https://thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2022/6/3/ai-in-fiction-and-the-future-of-war

Quach, H. (2025). My experience with Studio Ghibli style AI art: Ethical debates in the GPT-4o era. Medium. https://medium.com/@haileyq/my-experience-with-studio-ghibli-style-ai-art-ethical-debates-in-the-gpt-4o-era-b84e5a24cb60

Real Simple. (2025). Everyone on Instagram is making their own AI-generated action figures—here's how to make yours. https://www.realsimple.com/ai-generated-action-figures-11713742

Wu, J., Ouyang, L., Ziegler, D. M., Stiennon, N., Lowe, R., Leike, J., & Christiano, P. (2021). Recursively summarising books with human feedback. https://arxiv.org/abs/2109.10862