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Virtual snail race, or mere hallucination?

A week or two ago, I found myself describing the greater metaversapolitan area to a friend who had never heard of things like Second Life or There.com, virtual worlds or massively multiplayer online games, and who had only passing knowledge of apps like Google Earth and the concept of mirror worlds. I told her about the little business boomlet the sector seems to be experiencing these days, and the potential such places and applications hold for not only increasing our knowledge of the real world and the ways we connect there, but for making possible new modes of being and richer ways of interacting. A great place to get your fantasy on, and you can pull down six figures there, to boot, or so the marketing goes. Regardless, I said, it was exciting to be a part of it, to see this new thing unfold before my eyes, to be reporting on it from the front lines, so to speak, and to ride along and see just where it might go — even if it’s headed for a fiery crash, as some would argue, or a more mundane sputtering thud.

Her reaction was interesting: “It sounds like you’re living through the 1960s of technology,” quoth she. This strikes me as pretty spot on.

Now, as a point of disclosure / disclaimer, I should note here that I lived through only the last three and a half years of the 1960s, and have only patchy memories of the time. Of course, I share this last characteristic with a lot of people who lived through the entire decade, but in my case it isn’t because I was on drugs but because I was in diapers. That said, the era is by now pretty familiar to most of us, so I don’t mind commenting on it here. (And my parents were deep hippies at the time, so I have a lot of close knowledge through them.)

The more I think about it, the more I like my friend’s analogy. A lot of the concepts that are associated with 60s culture and counter-culture are also showing up in the metaversal sphere. Virtual worlds often create a hallucinatory landscape (giant snail races, anyone?) that would not be out of place in the most colorful acid trips of the decade in question. Virtual worlds are also being used as new avenues of personal realization and empowerment. There, you can be anything and anyone you want — or so it’s said. There’s something very akin to a sexual revolution in the offing, and many people are also exploring new approches to what we think of as “work.”

There is also an explosion of creativity. Much of the various forms and examples of art and creation that is coming out of the metaverse is truly new and exciting — though as much if not more is not very interesting at all, of course. But the moment has sparked a new flame under the broad class of people known somewhat clinically these days as “content creators,” and has in fact radically broadened that class by giving people new tools (even if they’re crude, as yet), which they are now using to pry open doors that hadn’t even been perceived before.

The metaverse at the moment is also a place where the received wisdom of established rights and laws is being challenged on a daily basis, and where people are struggling to find new ways to organize their society, as well as creating new kinds of communities that attempt to exist apart from those already established. And, as eventually happened to 60s culture, metaverse culture has now begun to be adopted by “the establishment,” much to many metaversal citizens’ chagrin.

Of course, many of the tropes that are kicked around about the 60s are in fact only partially true. Peace and love may have been the watchwords of the day, but the reality was somewhat more gritty than those words suggest. The same is true of the metaverse. A fantasy world where you can be anything, do anything and even make your living is only a very partial description of what’s going on in virtual worlds. The metaverse also sees its share of heartbreak, conflict and unfeeling bad governance, just as the 60s did.

The joyful uprising of the metaverse may also, arguably, have some ill effects going forward, just as could be argued of the joyful uprising of the 60s. Consider the fact that Linden Lab’s favorite management tool is known as the Love Machine, and their working philosophy is The Tao of Linden. Many SL residents would argue that the ill effects of these exactly match the analogous child-rearing practices that cropped up in the 60s, when kids were often left to their own devices because parents were afraid of corrupting their minds by providing too much authority. The reality was more mixed, with some people deriving great advantage from learning to be self-directed, while others floundered without guidance. The LL development process seems to suffer the same inconsistencies, if the complaints of residents are any judge.

The exciting thing is that the metaverse is happening at all, and for that much credit is due to the people at Linden Lab, There.com, ActiveWorlds, World of Warcraft, EVE Online, Google, MySpace, even Flickr and many other places. If nothing else, the 60s saw a radical shift in the way we approach culture and its creation, with many of the “gatekeepers” being swept aside in a move toward a more democratized and inclusive process (though not a fully democratized and inclusive one, to be sure). It could be argued, too (as John Markoff does in What the Dormouse Said), that this is part of what led to the development of the personal computer, and I’d further argue that the continued trend is part of what’s driving Web 2.0 apps — and the metaverse. Philip Rosedale’s original vision of Second Life seems to be of that place where you can be anything or anyone and do anything you like, a fantasyscape of dreams realized (or at least, virtualized). It’s a similar cultural shift, with technology now becoming a tool for personal expression in new and deeper modes, just as music, art and lifestyle were as a result of the changes of the 60s. You can now log on, rez in, and, if you like, drop out. It’s anyone’s guess as to how far-reaching the cultural effects of virtual-world and metaversal technologies will be, but it’s worth remembering that long hair and rock music was at one time thought to be a passing fad as well. Welcome to the 60s of technology.