Filed under: Digital Adoption by Digado

Since the ‘backlash’ of Linden Labs overhyping its Virtual World Second Life in october 2007 many have joined the ‘its a real world after all’ parade. Clay Shirky was amongst the first to point out SL failed to deliver despite the promises made by the Linden Labs PR Machine. Noticing how the expectations of the early adopters and virtual prophets were not met by this application they stated it was just another bubble.

Though a little late (nearly a year after Shirky’s article - most of the dust has settled), director of Republic Media - Malcolm King posted this article on Online Opinion. He writes about his ‘beef’ with people ‘who buy into the hype’ and tries telling ‘us’ the emperor has no clothes. However, he succeeds in illustrating the thoughts many nay-sayers have on the subject of Virtual Worlds. I’ll list 3 of the most common misconceptions and my answer to those assumptions as made by King:

“Many “cyber academics” make the astounding claim that the medium of online virtual worlds, such as Second Life, is reality. So virtual worlds are as real as you and me.”

I can only say this is as true as readers of books regard them as ‘real’. Noone I know will mistake 3d rendered images as being a reality as the real world is real. Ask someone the difference between a tree in their Virtual Word or a tree in the ‘off-line world’, and they will be able to tell. However, immersion, the imaginative triggers whilst being online, can make interactions seem real. While walking in a virtual world, you will still try to avoid ‘bumping’ into this digitally rendered image of a tree. Virtual Worlds don’t replace reality to its users, they copy and compliment the real world for better immersion.

“In Second Life the players are living in the program designer’s world. The players are engaged in what sci-fi novelist William Gibson called “the consensual hallucination of cyberspace”.”

What’s confusing to King is the word ’space’. They can only see space as a room, an area clearly defined by its creators. But space, in the digital sense, marks a connection, a location where certain lines meet. When we translate this to the metaverse or ‘cyberspace’ facilitates the meeting of people in a visual, rich environment. These lines are connected through software, but essentially the world is their own. They choose to interact, create, share or withdraw from this ’space’ at any time. Virtual Worlds are facilitators of certain thoughts and tasks. The worlds are created by the users.

“Can happiness be found in the arms of a warm avatar? I’m feeling the “consensual hallucination of cyberspace” coming on.”

I read a lot of misunderstanding, even resentment towards a Virtual Worlds here. King is talking like someone who has never been moved by a movie, a book, a song. The techniques are the same. Something, anything can trigger a state of emotion such as happiness. Words, sounds, images, and yes, the warm arms of a person. This is not ‘the consensual hallucination of cyberspace’ any more then we would call it ‘the consensual hallucination of music’ when you feel good listening to a certain song. Virtual Reality doesn’t claim to be the first or the only medium to trigger emotions.

Posted on: December 15, 2007 | Share on: