Social media platforms have become central sites of identity construction, where visibility and legitimacy are shaped through algorithmic systems, aesthetic conventions, and platform economies. This paper approaches online personas through the lens of illusionary selves, understood here as online personas experienced as authentic while being shaped by sociotechnical processes, examining how they are produced through sociotechnical processes entangling design practices, generative artificial intelligence(AI), and cultural expectations. We present an AI-mediated critical design inquiry into how generative systems translate and normalize visual patterns of online self-imaging. Using a pix2pix-based model trained on 630 internet celebrity selfies, facial images are abstracted into dot-based representations and aggregated across selfie angles, foregrounding repetition and normalization. An interactive design installation links bodily orientation and numerical parameters to generative output in real time, introducing perceptual friction in self-imaging. A total of 30 participants engaged with the system in situated contexts, and their experiences were documented through observation, video recording, and a 5-point Likert questionnaire across three dimensions: perceptual friction, awareness of algorithmic mediation, and reflective responses to self-presentation. Results indicate high levels of perceptual friction (mean M = 4.21), strong awareness of algorithmic mediation (M = 4.29), and consistent reflective unease (M = 4.07). Through situated use, the system renders algorithmic mediation tangible and positions AI as an implicated actor in identity construction. This work contributes a conceptual framing of AI-mediated critical design, showing how generative and interactive systems operate as epistemic devices interrogating online persona construction.
Li et al. (Mon,) studied this question.