EXTENDED REALITY
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Unlike Fortnite’s past concerts, Festival is fully playable, letting you hit notes and top leaderboards instead of simply watching the show
Virtual reality offers a safe space for artists like Ru, who may face discrimination in the real world. But the digital world is still prone to human imperfection
Clubs, raves and festivals give these artists a space to set dance floors ablaze with bass-heavy beats and clever remixes. They, too, lost their platforms during Covid-19, forced out of the Boiler Room and into the bedroom. Some went even further, embracing virtual raves as the new frontier of nightclubbing. VR Chat is one such place where the party never ends. Hosted on Steam, this virtual world is much like the others – and it’s a popular destination for partygoers at all hours of the day. Filled with virtual clubs and other venues, users need only pop on their headsets and wait in line for entry (while most clubs don’t charge a cover, sadly the metaverse hasn’t yet fully eradicated queuing). Depending on how often they visit and the cost of their gear, virtual clubs could save users money – plus, they can enjoy a night ‘out’ from home. Many casual DJs have found success in the virtual world, which has in turn led to
real-life bookings. Such is the case for trans DJ, Ru, who told Wired that her ‘life has been expanded’ by VR. She recently travelled from Ohio to Japan to perform in front of a live audience. Virtual reality, in many ways, offers a safe space for artists like Ru, who might face discrimination in the real world. Introverts, disabled individuals and members of the LGBTQ+ community can enjoy a comfortable experience without having to endure physical abuse. But despite its digital nature, the metaverse is still prone to human impulse and imperfection, and some users have reported alarming rates of their avatars being sexually assaulted. Even Ru said that she gets ‘sexually assaulted far less often’ in the metaverse than in real life; while ‘far less often’ is a start, it isn’t especially encouraging. Laura Bates, author of The New Age of Sexism: How the AI Revolution is Reinventing Misogyny , recounts a similar experience she had while in Meta’s Horizon Worlds , the company’s own contribution to the ever-expanding metaverse. “In one virtual karaoke-style club,” Bates wrote in a Guardian article, “the bodies of the singers on stage were those of young women in their early 20s. But based on their voices, I would estimate that many of the girls behind the avatars were perhaps nine or ten years old. Conversely, the voices of the men commenting on them from the audience, shouting out to them and following them off stage, were often those of adults,” she stated. Tech and gaming companies like Meta have been called upon to address cyber bullying and online harassment, but they’ve yet to produce a suitable response or integrate satisfactory safety measures. This expands beyond live
Steam’s VR Chat gives users access to thousands of community-made worlds, many of them designed for partying or socialising
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