The next fad in the app world could quite possibly be something that even its users don’t fully understand.

“My Idol” is an app written completely in Chinese and is a trending favorite in the technical world and can transform a picture into a digital avatar. Celebrity faces, pets, cartoons and even drawings can be turned into one of the bizarre cartoon creatures.

The process in creating an idol is simple. Once a picture is selected, align the facial features and let the

The customization of the avatar goes fairly in depth. The customization features allows skin color options that match different skin pigmentations, over 100 hairstyles, and more than 30 different eye colors to choose from. Facial marks, accessories, facial hair and outfits are added features that make the idol more realistic in appearance. The age of the idol can also be changed to correspond to the person it is depicting.

A nice feature about the avatar is that it allows each avatar to be gender neutral. You can create an avatar with any hairstyle or clothing style, including facial hair style, regardless of the gender of the person.

Once the avatar is customized, it can be animated. The avatar can be placed into different videos and scenes and can take “selfie” poses, sing karaoke and even pole dance. There is the option of using prerecorded audio in the avatar scene for further authenticity.

“My Idol’s” ability to connect to social media is one of the reasons it is so successful. The same feature that  allows the selfie posing function also allows the photos to be exported to other social media websites, such as Instagram. The video feature also allows the user to save and export their videos to their iPhone and onto other apps such as Vine. In a few steps, an avatar can be shared across any social media site.

There are some issues and features missing that could hinder users from downloading the app. The first and most obvious is that this Chinese app isn’t written in English. The user generally has to poke around and guess with the icon in hopes that they are pressing the right button. But after a few hours, the user should most likely get the hang of the app and how to use it.

While the app has a lot to offer, it takes time for its features to fully load. It takes a few moments for the app to process and allow the user to begin playing with it. Additionally, some of the animations take a while for them to fully load and change.

The inclusion of the voice control has an issue in that the user cannot take out the audio of a track added. However, it can be edited out and fixed if the user downloads it to their phone.

Finally, one last issue is that the app cannot directly transfer the photos to the social media websites. They have to be downloaded onto a phone and it takes a few more steps than expected to get to these apps.

All of these issues seem fairly fixable, however, and will most likely be fixed soon with the amount of fame and discussion “My Idol” has received. An English version has not been announced yet, but it most likely will be made soon. “My Idol” is a unique, amusing, application that anyone can have fun with and will most likely remain trending for the next month. It can be found for free in the app store and is definitely worth trying out.

Troy Kowalchuck can be reached at [email protected].