Hatsune Miku has become the most popular pop singer in parts of Asia. But there's something unique about this new pop star—she isn't a human being. Instead, according to Wired magazine, she's a "a virtual idol, a holographic star … a crowdsourced, ever-evolving famous software." Her band members are human, but she's not. In Japan her popularity and the resulting subculture equals that of the iconic Sonic the Hedgehog. Her name gets more than 22 million hits on Google. Miku even "performed" at a concert in Los Angeles in the summer of 2011.

Some of the most common descriptions about her come from her growing fan base:

• "She's rather more like a goddess. She has human parts, but she transcends human limitations. She's the great post-human pop star."
• "It doesn't take a human to sing a good song."
• "Those of us who are into this like dealing with machines more than with people."

Many are glad she's not human because, as one fan said, "She's not going to die. She's not going to turn into Miley Cyrus, where she gets drunk or something."

Hatsune Miku has no history—no home or family before she became a pop star. She was created in 2007 as a mascot for Crypton Future Media as a way to market their virtual voice and instrument software. It wasn't long before fans were creating their own manga comics, Miku fashion and video games. Fans created more than 3,000 Miku songs for iTunes and Amazon. Youtube has literally hundreds of thousands of original fan-generated Miku videos. There's a sub-genre of Miku porn, to the embarrassment of Crypton. Numerous "devotional texts" line shelves of bookstores, like Miku-inspired poetry and Miku-inspired poetry criticism.

Miku is the prototype of what is being called "disembodied entertainment." Is a "virtual idol" in the future of American pop culture?