1 Month In: VRChat - A Social Addiction

it's easy to forget how big the world actually is thanks to the multitude of ways to connect and communicate with millions of people within a moment social media is the driving force for modern interaction and sharing what and who you are with the universe despite not really having to engage with anyone on it people spend countless hours on twitter instagram tick tock and for my homies in the back about four hours on myspace holding down the fort baby but today i want to sit you down and talk about a social media based on actually socializing [Music] so [Music] so [Applause] vr chat is a free-to-play game created by graham gaylor and jesse jodry jodry zhao tree this it was initially released as a standalone app back in 2014 and three years later vrc came out on steam in early access in june of 2019 vrchat hit its top all-time peak concurrent player count at 28 596. this is just a game where you talk to people it's like discord but in vr hey blake your uh your face is dumb and you're a doo-doo head so it only makes sense that an extrovert like me would give this whole thing a shot all it took was my friend logan to give me a push thanks logan you know what come over here and give me a kiss after introducing me to it logan headed off for the night leaving me alone in this random avatar world with no experience in this game whatsoever so i did what i'm sure every single person logged on for the first time did went to some public world and just talked how's everybody's night been doing [ __ ] yeah see you guys tomorrow how's your boyfriend here still out of state see see he didn't need to ask which one oh my god you're adorable pretty good burper hey daddy it doesn't sound adorable every day actually just [Laughter] [Music] in a red [Laughter] i need you to come over here and rub my ass what i need you to rub my ass roosky ah dude i'll pass i'm sorry bro yo but it hurts i'm i'm sorry bro i need it dude you gotta do it bro a solid sometimes no no no no no no no no no no no no no no i can't do that okay what do you mean you can't do it come on it's easy rub me it's right there rub me he's run away dude run me i'll come kiss me through it's the sweetest thing and it don't change [Music] doing all right buddy you shouldn't talk to strangers you can't you can't argue with that you shouldn't talk to strangers mary i know the second i experienced this garbage i had to get vr of my own so i slammed on my keyboard pressed by and waited for my new toy to arrive you know what time it is unbox time we got the succulus dong ass here uh let's just open it up see what's nice and cool okay this right here uh it appears to be the instruction manual let's just put the headset on here beautiful you guys want to know the very first game i played in vr of course it was beat saber baby [Music] we haven't even talked about any of the people that i became friends with over this game you oh yeah sorry hi my name is shady dragon and i am a web developer my name is edwin in game name maybe green and i work with animals um hi i'm monty my real name is alexander i'm 23 years old and i'm from germany hi my name is tetra and i'm an alcoholic my name is liro i'm 25 and i'm currently living in japan i'm sorry i'm unemployed in a piece of [ __ ] [Laughter] real name jamie screen name shamey i work at a i work for the usda as a biotech person no there he goes oh [ __ ] [Laughter] so uh i'm silvicare karen i exist i think you muted yourself again yeah i think so too son of a [ __ ] okay we're gonna start with you introducing yourself well my name is nathan for nate okay hi i'm samuel my name my dis or [ __ ] you restart restart breathe hi my name shut up jasper now where was i vr chat has a unique way of just bringing out a different nature in people players often feel more free and open to talking to anyone else this is a good thing and a bad thing let's just use how i met edwin for example yeah i do remember how he met you are this little [ __ ] ferret or weasel thingy and i try to hit on you and try to [ __ ] you basically on the first time i met you since i met you and shady at the same time did you know that you two were like my first vr friends uh welcome to vr chat i didn't even know him for more than five minutes and he was already trying to get in my pants but that's the way vr chat is there's a certain language and culture you learn by playing it outfits become avatars cuddling is something everyone does with everyone else flirting becomes declarations of sexual conquest and for the most part just barging into random conversations is completely acceptable this place works on a different set of rules i've played so much that i found myself socializing with these rules in person can i can't call an avatar what when did you first join vr chat so we tried it a couple years back was okay and then we came back on what maybe like three four months ago syria yeah when we got uh vr all set up when we actually started playing vr more often i have about probably i want to say 1300 hours on vr chat so probably about maybe about a year and a half ago or more so i first joined vr chat like about a year ago and i played very casually on desktop sort of about two months ago i thought i'd get back into it again i saw like a lot of youtubers and stuff playing it i played it for about a week and then i went wow this must be so much better with a vr headset and so i got one now i just play like every day it's a problem my first time i joined vr shad must have been like six months ago well okay i could say it was like new year's eve literally started in vr on new year's eve went to the uh new york town square just seeing the countdown on every state it was a pretty first like experience and i loved it at what point were you like i might have i might have a little bit of a problem with vr chat uh the first day the first day of vr yeah probably about the time about two weeks into playing it that i started dreaming as an avatar that's probably about the time that i realized oh yeah vr is gonna vr is gonna be a bit more than just a game for me huh um probably like the day after i got the headset ah very first beginning oh i i realized i had a problem with fiance immediately as i started because i actually had fun in that why is everyone so hyped to play this what is so alluring in this game to keep bringing people back in a whole industry of games designed for daily logins battle passes and weekly resets where does the simple vr based avatar social platform fit what keeps you coming back to vrcha ah what keeps me coming back um the people i met you just meet so many great people in this it's just the interaction and having people express themselves with the avatars that they have made it tells a lot about their character honestly a lot of the friends that i've made and some of the some of the experiences that i've had i think it's cool to always met new people i i i have a vrc family so uh i come back to come see my kids once in a while and it's really good to see my kids and then i come see to my friends my friends are my closest things to me so yeah as you can clearly see nearly everyone i interviewed said the people in one form or another which honestly makes sense considering it's a whole platform based on interacting with others sure you can talk to your team invalorant or rainbow six siege but not often do you get to know that person granted there are times you do but those fleeting moments of finding a potential friend are all of what makes up vr chat after meeting so many new people i had a simple question on my head there's got to be more to do than just talking right of course there is there are a ton of worlds that feature games and activities to do with your new friends such as murder racing aim training countless drinking games uno [ __ ] mine sweeper it was at this moment that he knew bingo oh yeah and sleep there are a ton of people who just sleep in this game there are whole worlds dedicated to those who get into vrc just to cuddle and fall asleep a few of my friends do it all the time the two most common activities for players seem to be sleeping or cuddling i can understand cuddling being close to someone and just being chill is a really good feeling and through tough times some people really need that we of course can't mention cuddling without talking about what comes after what comes after cuddling i'm glad you asked have you ever erpd oh [Laughter] this is the 18 plus video the answer to that is yes i have oh of course like hello i'm a [ __ ] it's just it's how it works yes yeah a little bit and by a little bit i mean yeah a lot now some of you might be asking what does erp stand for you know maybe we shouldn't play that here with maybe the government watching or worse santa claus going off of that did you know around 14 million couples in the us alone are in long distance relationships oh thanks for the statistic long distance relationship statistics.com why did you bring this up you ask in your chair looking all fresh west philadelphia born and raised have you ever dated someone in vr uh yes actually i have kinda i was yeah i was glad i was really just someone's pet multiple times i have i have dated someone in vr so dating um for me i actually i wrote in high school and giving me the actual like already had any luck i never expected girls together just crazy it's super common for people in vrc to at least attempt dating being in vr helps a lot when in a long distance relationship after all you can see their movements and hear them the only thing you're missing is touch yo blake i'm so goddamn hard for you right now and i'ma let you finish but i have the greatest phantom touch of all time turns out brains are weird so while blake here can't feel a damn thing in the virtual realm i was gifted by the heavens if the heavens was a woman across the world practicing hypnosis that is just tell us what it is ah shut up [ __ ] [ __ ] i was getting to that phantom touch in vr is a phenomenon that very little people actually experience and even less have it across their whole body so if you have it you're pretty lucky unless you don't like it then well sorry to describe it best i can let's say someone walks up to me in vr chat i see their hand reach out and plant itself atop my head and obviously their hand is not on my real head but my brain takes what it sees and interprets it in a warm and tingly way to the point where i feel the head pattern that's really nice vr's phantom touch is actually very similar to a condition found in the real world called mirotouch synthesis which wikipedia describes as a rare condition which causes individuals to experience a similar sensation in the same part or opposite part of the body such as touch that another person feels this can be linked pretty heavily to vr my avatar's body is clearly not mine so the condition interprets it as someone else's body now i mentioned earlier that i don't actually have this condition i gain my phantom touch through other means help statistics even show how rare this is around 1.6 to 2.5 percent of the general population have this condition that's tiny that's like exactly the same percent of steam users that have vr winky dink oh so some people actually can feel things in vr i couldn't imagine feeling anything myself that's because you don't thank you shady for enlightening us about touchy feeling types yeah you're welcome um so you should really be kind to yourself in your scripts you're really lovely and everyone really appreciates your hard work speaking of touching let's talk about hands vrc has a special and often overlooked opportunity this is not my first mute friend in vrc he suffers from social anxiety to the point where it's a lot easier to just sign what he wants to say than to even try to open his mouth he is actively teaching me how to read sign and communicate with the mutant deaf community because there's something beautiful about vr you can use your hands there are a couple of worlds specifically for teaching people how to sign in vr and from my experience every mute i've met has been super helpful in teaching me how to read and understand them correctly it seems the whole community is this way so what does any of this mean why did i decide to make a disjointed video about vr chat and showcase it to the world because of this all of what you've seen and heard is just what i had the pleasure of being a part of this is my vr chat no one else's mine looks like this bend over i'm not gonna stick a mug in my ass money while other people's might be this shitty don't get distracted [ __ ] you gotta read off all your beautiful stuff you gotta welcome all these [ __ ] to the mew crew or hell even this there should be a grabable setting yeah it's grabbable now you can actually grab it wait wait that's not vr chat what is that vr chat isn't the same thing for everyone it's a unique and outlandish experience that everyone i've talked to recommends how has vr chat impacted your life without a doubt uh the archer has had almost a profound effect in my life i used to be a very uh well extremely introverted person very timid kind of shy but as i've spent more months and more hours in vr chat i've become more open i've become way more expressive it's given me an outlet to be social in some aspects uh vrsa has impacted my life greatly actually i'm more social in real life i met other wonderful people here i've met a lot of wonderful people here i wasn't the most social person before vr chat um and especially with like the the thing that's going on at the moment um but being able to like just go out randomly and be social without like any effort at all um has been really really like it's been nice i would have never have met these amazing people i consider my friends if it wasn't for this silly little game do you consider any of these vr friends like real friends honestly i would consider them real friends just like anything else oh absolutely why wouldn't they be real friends you don't have to meet someone irl to become friends with some there are people online that i've confided with more information about my life than i have with my irl people i find that a lot easier i will consider them my friends i mean i've done loot things irl with a couple of them one of them showed up to my birthday party a couple weeks ago um a lot of them have helped me through some [ __ ] i've helped a lot of them through some [ __ ] and i experienced this in just one month and well i'm honestly excited for whatever comes [Music] next let's take these last few moments of the video to thank everyone involved in a nice short segment we go on we remember all the times we had together and as our lives changed [Music] if you like my voice i got a podcast you can click on it in the dizzily do if you really like my voice i stream sometimes you can click on that in the doodly doo bye [Laughter] this is fine

Channel: Snow Blake

Views: 10,031

Rating: 4.9458127 out of 5

Keywords: Documentary, VRChat, Virtual Reality, Comedy, Interviews, Informative, Funny, Blake Mitchell, one month in

Id: -5SvPkO4380

Length: 23min 33sec (1413 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 24 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Venaitre]

Great video! Well edited.
It perfectly shows what I hope to achieve in VRChat over time!
. . . With ERP being the exception.

[u/snowglobe73]

Ohhh thank All of you who have watched it, Means so much to me!

[u/JustAD00DOnGarbage]

That was a good satisfying video, it’s always nice to see everybody’s VRC experience

[u/Kohlner]

Top notch quality and production, recommending this to all my VRC buddies.