Making Sense of VRChat, the 'Metaverse' People Actually Like

Mark Zuckerberg may have unconvincingly sold you his version of the Metaverse, but let us show you another.

Written and presented by Quintin Smith:

Design and art direction by Anni Sayers:

00:00 - ThE mEtAvErSe
02:14 - We fail to understand VRChat
07:20 - We start to understand VRChat
25:03 - The scene's troubled future

[RTGame]

Vrchat as a platform has incredible potential. I've a gang of friends and we do a weekly private pub night on it. Public worlds are hell and I wouldn't recommend them in the same way I wouldn't recommend random online chatrooms, and there's huge problems with the lack of moderation there. But hopping on with friends in private lobbies is incredible and has helped keep me sane through lockdown

[rampagingFurniture]

the head pat thing becomes so much funnier when you remember his avatar would absolutely be hunching over like gollum when it happened

[PotatoMcWhiskey]

Absolutely cannot get over the little gremlin t-rex pose of Quinn's wine bottle. Have sat here laughing for a solid 5 minutes.

[domino]

I’ve been developing in VRChat for years now, and it’s refreshing to finally see someone bring out the reality of its impact, for people who feel like they need a space to be themselves. This game has prevented 2 close friends of mine from taking their own lives. And I thank, and appreciate this games existence every day.

[EBhero]

There's something magical about seeing a player open their heart out to why VRchat means so much to them while Quinns sits listening with passion, shaped as a creepy wine bottle

[MrSkerpentine]

I remember once browsing random VRChat worlds, and I stumbled across this one user who creates fully accurate and fully playable 80’s game show sets. There’s 0 automation and little-to-no scripting to it, you have to have an extra person on hand manning an entire backstage control panel much like a real game show production. It’s hella complicated, but the creator has videos on their YouTube channel showing it all working, and it’s *super* impressive for the work of one dude who just wanted to play the 1982 version of The $100, 000 Pyramid but with furries over the Internet, and that’s a super-niche of dedicated internet creators that Mark Zuckerberg probably doesn’t even know or care about

[ashleykemp]

The unintended comedy of watching an awkward wine bottle nod along to anime girls talking is pure genius.

[NidonocuPoisonBunny]

The one big side effect of VRChat being built the way it is using Unity and Blender rather than a custom set of tools, is that if it died tomorrow, the amount of people it's taught how to do do the basics of game development would see immediately the community coming together to fashion a new one. That in its self is incredibly powerful.

[blankblank]

i just wanna say, meta trying to redefine and monopolize the 'metaverse' angered me so much becuase we ALL already have a metaverse. YOUR metaverse is the sum of all your devices, software, and websites. The metaverse is literally already a completely open platform and meta is trying to steal it all away. meta wants to take over not only vr, but every digital component of your personal metaverse there is. I dont want to engage in a metaverse full of painfully bland expression and monetization, i am terrified that by the time i do have enough money to buy vr gear that has no attachment to facebook vrchat and the current independent vr metaverse will be already poisoned by meta's tendrils.

[geneticemo]

I remember my most amazing memory with VRchat was sitting down in an underwater house with a bunch of random people when a solid snake avatar pulled out a guitar and started playing music as a group of people

We sat there for hours just singing and talking, I met my boyfriend(who I now live with) and a bunch of close friends that night

Playing VRchat literally shaped my life today

[Straszfilms]

Thank you for interviewing me and giving me a shout out!

I really appreciated the respect and honesty you showed the platform in the bits I've watched so far. Super excited to digest the whole thing!

[kayleewoz]

I have been in virtual worlds as an educator and socially for 15 years. I love VRChat! Because of my age (62) I don't get involved with any of the social side of things, but I do have places I go regularly to do IRL exercise, and fun activities like bowling and mini golf. It's an incredibly rich virtual universe (forget the metaverse) that can be a wild ride, but is also infinitely interesting. 💜

[gschoenhoff]

"How often do you need to stop people doing ERP in K-Mart?" is the best question I've ever heard.

[shimblywimbles]

This is honestly the most sold I've ever been on a VR future, and it has *nothing* to do with Zuck's vision. They will destroy this, just like they did the internet. Wondering whether I should try to find my way there or give it a pass so I don't get my heart broken when that happens.

EDIT: Oh god the gender part broke me. Yeah, my non-binary ass is gonna find a way there.

[otocan]

This video gave me good feels. Those people role-playing as K-Mart employees just to provide people a space to chill out reminded me so much of my teenage years online, particularly on Habbo Hotel - a complete crazy mess but at the heart of it were people who wanted nothing more than to share stuff and hang out with other people, and before too long you will stumble upon some surprisingly selfless people doing cool and nice things just for its own sake. I made friends there in a way that I never could have in real life, and I even met my future wife there though I didn't know it at the time :)

[NewMateo]

Dude the fact you did ALL these interviews as a giant creep of a wine bottle is hilarious. The skulking around K-Mart is great.

[andriypredmyrskyy]

Hey, don't forget there's a robust deaf community in vr chat! You can learn sign language in vr! Honestly, you could do deep dives into hundreds of these communities.

[gilon-xxes]

The thing is with Meta, Mark is gonna HEAVILY sanatize it to make it look "Investor-Friendly". Means no copy-righted brands or characters, creativity would be heavily restricted by an inhibitive TOS system, most projects would become souless cash cow traps. Not to mention should Mastercard be involved in ANY way shape or form with finance, expect massive desexualization and LGBTQ othering to follow afterwards.

[ahomestucker]

"headpats in vr are kinda the handshake" thats just so interesting. how the interactivity of a game can change how ppl interact on even the most basic level, their greetings

like, i used to play a game called sky cotl a lot, and in that game bowing was the way basicslly everyone greeted each other and it made interactions so different from stuff youd find anywhere else

[TheLrdfSpace]

I know you described it as creepy, but I fucking loved Quinn's wine bottle because it looked like anything but.

An adorably disproportionate being with a small, cute face, hunched over looking at its small friends; it looked like something out of a Pixar film.