vr chat journals

    My house has not seen a trick or treater in 5 years. Something I don't particularly miss, but none the less does direct how I spend my Halloween nights. This year (2024) I spent Halloween night in VR Chat. Mostly hanging around in "Trash Compactor" worlds; a game world that consists of a player shooting physics objects to knock the other players off junk into a big hole. That night was effectively by myself, I did not say a single word across my 4 hour play session.

    Every night following I would play VR Chat before bed, without any of my friends. Mostly spent silent, but not exclusively. Each night spent would be capped with a "vr chat journal" that I would spend no more than 30 minutes on.

     My Halloween night of journal depicts my avatar getting turned into a blood of mist by an antagonizing "Trash Compactor" world. My strategy in playing this game is simply to sit on top of the roof of the center most trailer. This specific moment I knew my fate was set, so I decided to face it head on. My character approximately performed this animation as I moved between the laying down state to the crouched state and to the upright state. When I perform these transitions well enough I like to imagine that I am actually performing this with body tracking.

    Day 2 depicts also a "Trash Compactor" world, where a player wearing a Peridot from Steven Universe avatar wouldn't stop staring at me. I was perturbed. But I can't in good faith blame it solely on the Peridot as I was listening to Kid A on repeat which was making geek out on the vibes. This journal was actually scribbled in progressively through my night in contrast to the rest being drawn at the tail end of my play session. The digital numbers are my remberings of the timer that would end each game session. I had grown quite resentful of that timer.

    This one is me fully embracing my stalker persona. I spent the bulk of my night in a populated cabin world. I enjoyed it. It was littered with graffiti which I documented and I will review in a later blog post about my feelings about VR Chat in general. I integrated the graffiti into the journal itself, which I kind of postured as the similarly silent and stalking creatures of Yume Nikki.

    This brief 3 panel comic is a pretty self explanatory experiance. What's left to the imagination is just conditions of the exchange. It was a Trash Compactor instance, that was about to close as the host was going to bed. Before they left, they wanted to play without randoms. Upon this being conveyed I performed the "GMod Dance" included in my avatar's expressions. I wasn't initially trying to convince the owner, I just wanted to not be uncomfortable as they were soon to kick me.

    I enjoyed those 2 last games, I felt welcomed for the first time.

    This last journal was made the same night of the previous; a double feature. Trash Compactor is where I have spent the most time so far in VR Chat. I've found some comfort existing a space where there distractions from literally being social. 

    This night specifically I spawned into a still world; the view port of the game showed a still counter and no players in the play space. But curiously no one in the waiting room despite the player count being 8. I saw in the distance a PNG of a drone flying towards me clipping through the geometry of the world. When the drone penetrated the view port, a young voice asked me "Wanna ride?" which I offered my first and only spoken word of the night "Sure.".

    He then spun in 180° revealing a highlighted box which VR Chat prompted me to "sit". After mounting the beast, he flew me across the distance of the play space into the turret chamber where I saw the previously missing players. After I dismounted, the drone PNG as if he was literally automated made his way slowly across back towards the spawn area. I sat and listened to the mixxed age crowd observing the space of the turret room which isn't usually so free to observation. Like the breadth of my time playing VR Chat, I spent it silent.

    Like many well written we finish where we started; the arena of "Trash Compactor". This time having conquered my shadow: playing the damn game. I think my main reflection is that I enjoy viewing these often commodified and quickly thrown away digital environments. But my will to experience these worlds as though they are digital parks is nothing more than a distraction from actually indulging people in conversation.

    I haven't spent much time in VR Chat since this last journal. I feel that it represents a monkey's paw for my life. I constantly am seeking escapism, not from pain necessarily but from having to address my situation. I think a lot of the people I have happened across in VR Chat are in a very similar camp.

    I think the users of VR Chat have unfairly and very broadly been painted with a color of paint of this escapism. But I would like to retort that a lot of these people just are decompressing. Much in the same fashion someone would after a long day retire to a couch and watch seinfeld, these players retreat to VR. 

I may be stupid

    And my brain is addled with youtube CRAP

But I do know my computer rocks

These worlds make us happy

AND I LOVE YOU

- bb