LOS ANGELES: Only three years after they were first launched, WhatsApp's avatars are being given the boot, and the messenger service says these digital versions of users will soon no longer be editable and be removed for anyone using one as a profile photo.
New avatars can no longer be created either, Meta says on the WhatsApp help pages.
The binning of avatars comes counter to Meta's concerted efforts to rethink social media as a virtual reality universe where people have digital versions of themselves.
Avatars for the messenger were introduced at the end of 2022 and were designed to work with various basic types and be customised with many features, from hairstyles to outfits, similar to Apple's so-called Memojis.
This also allowed users to generate a set of 36 personalised stickers showing their avatar with different emotions or performing various actions. These existing avatar stickers will still be usable, Meta said.
Meta did not give a reason why the avatars have to go. The WhatsApp news website WABetaInfo.com, which first reported the end of the avatars, suspects that a lack of user interest is responsible.
Avatars and other graphic representations of people acting as a virtual proxy in the digital world took off in the early 2020s amid predictions that the internet would be transformed by virtual reality hardware.
However, an ambitious and expensive drive by WhatsApp parent company Meta to develop a so-called metaverse has since amounted to little more than fringe technology. – dpa
