That title’s not a joke, by the way (well, maybe the second part is). As part of a new and very prevalent investigation being headed by TLT and the CIE, my associates and I will be exploring and documenting our experiences with a Virtual Reality Social Platform (hereby referred to as “VRSP”) in the hopes of applying the findings to future projects involving the establishment of virtual online spaces for students and faculty to interact without physically needing to be present.
Instead of doing any preliminary research on the topic of VRSPs or formulating any ideas or hypotheses I may have about the system, I decided to do the much more fun thing of diving right in and seeing what happened. And I was pretty much blown away by what I experienced.
I started with what may be considered the most popular VRSP, VR Chat. After learning how to make my character walk I spent what felt like a long time deciding my avatar. Even with only the presets VR Chat had to give me (although I don’t know how the anime girl or fursuit avatars ended up in my presets) I was kinda nervous to really go meet people. Luckily VR Chat has a “Home” feature: a small space where you can change your avatar and walk around a bit before heading out into the “Hub”. It was in here I transformed into some ridiculous avatars, with size being the thing that caught me off guard the most. Being able to go from a tall lanky chili pepper to a small anime girl half the pepper’s size, and the camera adjusting to the height of the model, proved to be a disorienting experience. Once my avatar was chosen however, I threw caution to the wind and jumped right in.
The “Hub” is VR Chat’s online element, and entering worked kinda like watching TV, only once you’ve selected your channel you have to walk through the TV to see the show. I decided to enter a “Just to Chill Room”, since entering the Game of Roleplay rooms seemed a little too daunting at the time. Once I got in there I had a bit of strange beginning.
It was empty. I saw someone leave just as I was hopping in but I spent the first couple of minutes in this public space alone. It was a campfire scene so I interacted with some of the objects. I could pick up random objects, throw them around, sit down on boxes and logs, and walk around. After not that long the first person showed up. They were friendly and I helped them figure out how to move the character more freely. VR Chat has an interesting move system that was kinda clever, but I think could be improved or navigated in an easier way.
After a while more people began showing up. Then more, then more after that. Pretty soon we had about 10 people in the lobby (5 who stuck around, the other 5 kept being replaced by new people) and it was interesting to interact with people in this sort of capacity. While initially we all had to get through quick introductions we were soon engaging with each other and the space. We had characters being the fire warden and keeping items like weapons and liquids away from the fire, a person pole dancing and having other characters throw money at them, and I even got wrapped up in a prayer circle for a character who had jumped off the edge of the world. That player then interrupted their own prayer circle by standing in the middle of the fire pit and spinning around.
Towards the end we all sat around the campfire and talked about current events. I found out that one of the people I had been talking to was from Indiana, and his college was closed until summer because of the Coronavirus. Originally he thought that was great, but he lamented about the fact that that meant he would be spending his 21st birthday alone, since all his friends had gone home. Another two people I talked to were from Estonia, and they talked about how crazy things are over there. I had formed a connection with these people. One that was solidified when I had to leave, and we all high-fived in VR before saying good bye.
I’ve watched a couple of videos exploring the wackier sides of VR Chat and VRSPs in general, but being able to have quieter moments with people in a one on one fashion akin to sitting at the same table was weirdly human. Like it felt more real than any message board or Twitter thread I’ve ever read. It was cool how after a while we were able to have real discussions with real people. After spending an hour in there, I can easily see this replacing any current systems we have in place for online curriculum, because when you’re virtually in this space, and everyone is following the same outline/rules, it replaces your physical space, like watching a scary movie with all the lights off, you become completely engrossed in the virtual world.
Leave a Reply