21st CENTURY HEADLINES: The weird world of virtual models is full of very real money.

In February, a makeup brand owned by pop megastar Rihanna shared an image on social media of a gorgeous dark-skinned model wearing the company’s lipstick.

The mysterious model, who went by Shudu, was quickly becoming a social media sensation, and as the photo went viral, it added to her growing number of followers.

By April she had more than 90,000 people following her on Instagram, but there was just one problem.

She wasn’t real.

She was a social media mirage, a digital forgery, a computer-generated image. Or, according to the man who created her, an art piece paying homage to beautiful, dark-skinned women.

When does she launch her singing career?