Your WhatsApp avatar is customizable and adopts various attractive poses, allowing you to be even more expressive when messaging with family and friends.
- What is happening? The customizable Bitmoji-style avatars that Meta recently brought to Instagram and Messenger are coming to WhatsApp soon.
- Why care? The avatar is part of Meta’s effort to create a user identity for the metaverse. And the Meta avatars will stay with you, whether you like it or not.
- What to do? Prepare for this feature by customizing your meta avatar now.
Meta Tests WhatsApp Avatars
WABetaInfo reports that some WhatsApp Android beta users may already be seeing a new category labeled “Avatar”in the WhatsApp settings menu. There, people can choose between pre-made avatars or customize their own.
It’s not too different from the Apple Memoji feature or Bitmoji-style avatars on Instagram and Facebook (plus Instagram Stories and DMs).
You can customize the color of your hair and eyes, adjust your skin tone, choose a hairstyle, dress up your avatar in different outfits, and so on. The goal is to make the avatar look as close to your actual appearance as possible.
Then the system will automatically create a set of stickers with your avatar in different poses. You can use your saved avatar to spice up your messaging game and also share the whole sticker pack with your friends and family, etc.
As Meta builds its metaverse, the avatar will be critical to personalization in the virtual world. When you wear the Meta headset, your avatar represents you in the virtual world. This is how people perceive your personality in the metaverse.
How to create your own Facebook and Instagram avatar
To create an avatar from scratch in the Facebook app, tap your profile photo in the bottom right corner to go to your profile, then tap Avatars.
You can also create your Facebook avatar at facebook.com/avatarmaker.net.
On Instagram, go to your profile by clicking on your profile picture in the bottom right corner, select “Edit Profile”at the top, and then click “Create Avatar”.
Your avatar will sync between Facebook and Instagram if you have enabled the option to sync your Facebook and Instagram profiles.
When will WhatsApp launch Avatars?
WhatsApp Avatar is currently limited to WhatsApp for Android 2.22.21.3 beta. It may take some time before WhatsApp rolls out avatars to all users.
The current implementation is a bit rough around the edges. For example, the beta didn’t allow you to fully customize your avatar (this will happen in the next beta update).
In the coming weeks, Meta will collect feedback from beta users. After that, we should have a better idea of when WhatsApp Avatar can be launched for all users through a future WhatsApp app update [ App Store link ].
Other new features coming to WhatsApp
WABetaInfo has been exploring new WhatsApp features from beta code for several years now. He recently unearthed information about interesting changes in WhatsApp. Read: How to send a message to someone on WhatsApp without saving their number first
For example, you can mute large group chats to reduce notification load. Creating polls in one-on-one chats and managing automatic media download settings have also been in development for some time.