thedefinitivevrchatjournal

[thedefinitivevrchatjournal]

New Years Celebrations

Rather than spending my New Years outside like a normal adult human being I spent it indoors with my parents and strangers online.

And I’ve got to say. It was incredibly worth it. I was about 4 hours away from midnight when I had a dangerous epiphany. *I would have a drink with all the people on my friends list.*

So, I had 4 hours to hunt down every single one of my friends and drink with them. I honestly had a blast. Saying ‘hello’ to everyone was just absolutely amazing. Every single one of them was just as friendly and welcoming as the day that I met them. I shared a chat with many and recollected on the things I’ve experienced with them.

These were no longer strangers. These people I’ve met online were legitimately *friends* and in a month and a half since I’ve downloaded this game I managed to make so many that I was absolutely wasted by the end of it.

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The Aftermath

I’m grateful that this platform exists... It honestly has improved my self confidence and openness in public. There are definitely things I need to continue working on but that means I can keep growing and thats the best part about it all. My journey here hasn’t ended and I don’t know what’s in store for this year but I’m excited about the things I wanna get done here! 

Ren 01/02/2020

[thedefinitivevrchatjournal]

Holiday Update and short recap

Geeze there’s so much that I’ve been up to recently in VR chat that it’s gonna be a fun thing to write my thoughts out to.

I’m really happy I decided to download this game. After about a month of playing my social anxiety has dropped a little bit more. This was extremely evident the last time I went out to a dance club as I was able to talk to random people the entire night. Usually I’m outgoing but isolated. Meaning I do my own thing and be in my own world and not really pay attention to those around me but that night I was a lot more aware of those around me and was able to have fun the whole night.

These nights I’ve spent in VR chat are usually with the people I met from the last post I had. These party-goers are like-minded adults enjoying one another’s company a few  times a week and just talk to one another in what feels like a community club room. Except with a lot more dancing and drinking of course.

It’s absolutely wonderful. People are always hanging out and the vibe is really chilled out. It’s fascinating.

Recently got extremely drunk to the point of taking a nap. Barely made it back to my room but it was really just a nice chill night so I didn’t miss anything much.

I’ve recently got invited to a more NSFW community through the original one I’ve joined. This is a much larger group of individuals. I mean MUCH larger. They have scheduled events on specific days of the week and have stricter rules to help optimization. I can’t wait to experience those events as well.

Tonight i’m writing this while listening to a live DJ with a few friends. Its a fantastic show and venue. I’ll try and come up wit ha few articles to read tomorrow and learn more about basics of hierarchies and start writing a few tings and possibly start setting up the interview list and questions.

- Ren 12/29/19

[thedefinitivevrchatjournal]

First Week Is Done and Upload Schedule

Intro:

Right so I’ll be quickly recapping what’s happened in the last week and what I want to investigate in the future. 

Upload Schedule:

I’ll try to go once a week for the regular shenanigans like the dumb stuff I’m about to talk about this week. For the bigger stuff that I’m concerned about (IE: Hierarchies, Social Stigmas etc.) I’ll try and keep it once a month and really try and focus in on it. Pre-research and such. I’ll try and post links too.

This Weeks Shenanigans

Well, how the hell do I even start? It’s a freaking Tuesday, and I’ve been on VR Chat for about 2 weeks at this point. I’m a “User” now so interacting with veterans and other users has gotten pretty easy. That’s a plus.

I guess the most interesting that happened this week was that I was hanging out with a few people and I was really attracted to somebody with full-body tracking. Sounded like a woman over the voice chat and talked heavy about circuits and shit like that and I found that incredibly enticing. Turns out it was a pre-transition person and I wasn’t even bothered by it. Casually flirting with them and having a little fun because it’s not real, ya know?

At this point I’m gonna try and keep it friendly and the same but I’m still mulling over if I’m into it enough or not. This obviously lead me to question my sexuality because I’m straight as an arrow with effeminate tendencies because I’m rather happy-go-lucky. Not sure how to explain. I digress.

A really good friend of mine’s favorite phrase “Everyone is bisexual in VR” and to some degree this is true. I said something retarded because I was exuding that “big dick energy” and expressed to the dancer that I would have sex with them if I had the time. Another, more experienced male quickly ran up to me and warned “are you sure about that bro” and that’s when I realized the dancer was also male. 

I found my reaction incredibly interesting. I just kinda accepted it and thought to myself “Well, I already said what I said not much I can do about it.” It didn’t change the fact that their personality was great and that their voice was awesome. It honestly didn’t really bug me. I’m not sure how I’d react in real life though. 

Anyway, happy socializing. 

- Ren

12/10/2019

[thedefinitivevrchatjournal]

Introduction

Hello! Welcome!

You can call me Ren, I’m glad you’re here witnessing the birth of something so awful that I wanted to document as many steps I take down this rabbit hole.  So, why am I doing this? Well,  that’s kinda hard to answer- multiple reasons, the first and most evident to me is that I’m lonely. Without getting into how I got myself into this mess, it’s sufficient to say that I’ve got to relearn how to interact with people. Second, pure unadulterated curiosity, not much too it. Third, nostalgia, VR Chat reminds me of the mid to late 2000s where Instant Messengers were new and innovative. Being rather young at the time I obviously took part, and so there’s a strong sense of familiarity and belonging that is very welcoming.

What do I want to do? Well, honestly explore this freaking big ass cybernetic world! Dude! Check it, this place is the stuff that people wrote about back in the early 90s where shit like Cyberchase and the Matrix only fantasized about! Stuff like .//hack and the like. We live in the freaking future. There is so many people  and things to do that this is honestly won’t be good for me. I can already tell. 

I digress, aside from being excited about this game what I wanna do is document the social behaviors and etiquette within the realm of Cyberspace. This is rather informal but I hope to accomplish a decent, well thought out piece of literature that will accurately describe the social interactions as best I can. I will admit I’m a STEM major and have no real background in the social sciences that would probably help describe my experience to actual scholars (However, video lectures, books and the like would be very welcome suggestions) but I will do my best to express my thoughts and observations as thoroughly possible.

Okay, but why? I believe what I’m doing is rather important, much like the early interactions on programs like AIM, Kik, GaiaOnline and other IM related chatroom services there was no definitive writings that could accurately translate the experiences of the denizens of the internet at the point in time, one had to experience them to understand.

I do recognize that there is a decent amount of adults now (Probably anybody under 30) that have had these experiences but I’ve noticed that not a lot of people vocalize their experiences in real life, for good reasons, however this doesn’t change the fact that a majority of us have lives online that we’d prefer never to discuss with anybody in real life. I’d like to normalize it all.

Thanks for reading, hope you stick around.

- Ren 11/30/2019