VR and my future of social Internet spaces
Discord?
I don't really have much else: basically just Discord (mutuals feel free to add me - check my profile!). But even that has been feeling kind of unhealthy for a while. It built up too much and it just turned into a bunch of unread messages I should catch up on in arbitrary intervals. But I don't really want to interact with most of these servers I'm on - it's too much and many are too big. So despite thinking it would be good to at least have a platform I can use for social networking, I instead decided to leave at least half the servers I was in, and the rest of them I muted so the little notification pip doesn't appear any more. I have just one tiny, quiet server which I'll allow notifications of any kind on, and I already feel a lot better for it. Now, it feels like something I use far more for DMs than I do servers.
Sadly, I think the only thing I'd really enjoy is something akin to cohost, and while something tangential to it would be lovely and I'll be there day one for it, I'm not expecting something this good to come along.
VRChat
There is, however, one other avenue for me that has been there for a couple of years and still actually fills a need I've had for Internet social spaces, and it's VRChat. It really took me by surprise as I'd heard of it a bunch but I didn't think it was anything worthwhile - my perception that it was all just screaming kids and weird racist memes. It turns out that I was pretty wrong (though you'll find that easily enough if you just go to the most populated public worlds), and what I found instead was something so reminiscent of an older, more organic Internet that I've managed had some of my best times of my online life on it.
This is owed partially to its spaces: the worlds are created by users who are passionate enough to want to build a space of their own liking that they'll just learn blender + unity and make it in their own time. And much like people making Regular Ass Websites, these spaces are delightfully imperfect, sometimes very impressive, sometimes incredibly cozy, sometimes just so batshit that it kind of feels like when you're just clicking around various websites and enjoying how much they appear to be an extension of the creator's style and personality.
But also when you are able to find a nice community, you'll end up with a tight network of regular folk who use private instances to have a comfortable distance from all the kids in the public worlds. And it's so cool to have a different medium from what we're used to - a blog, a forum, a chatroom, a voice call, a video call - and be in a space that while still very online, adds in the dimension of user presence to really help you get an idea of who you're talking to - partially of the actual human you're talking to, partially the avatar they inhabit and present to the VR world. This is me!
I had a long break from it as I needed time to readjust my life after going through a breakup from a long-term relationship, but my affection for it, and the friends I've made and hang out with, are still there. I've jumped back in a couple of times recently, and it's been lovely. Personally I (naturally) gravitated towards a lot of lovely queer and trans friends, and prefer cozy hangouts where we just cuddle and watch films or youtube or whatever. But I love the rave scene when I'm in the mood for that, too. Ghostclub is a really special experience that I'm going to try and catch when it's on (usually a couple of hour long sets, once per month). Here we're all watching Die Hard, and Bojack Horseman respectively:
I won't rely on it all the time - of course, the medium has an inherent barrier to entry, in that you gotta put the headset on, give yourself enough play space, load up the app etc, which means I can't just ambiently idle on it while I don't have anything else going on - it's a very conscious activity. But I'm looking forward to diving more into new discoveries, seeing more weird shit, and embracing the controlled chaos that is getting to explore and meet a whole bunch more interesting people, learning new facts and watching new shows, experiencing incredible raves and DJ sets with the safety of not needing to go out (also! being able to change the volume of voices and/or music is a godsend, let's get that implemented in real life soon please).
