Up until now, The Metaculture has covered musicians who operate within the dance scene in VRChat. However, the history of music in VR is such a wide scope, it's unfair to keep the lens focused on EDM exclusively.
TFMJonny got his start in VR in 2018, and has been belting out tunes and entertaining audiences across live VR concerts and Twitch gaming sessions alike. His fans are numerous; have him show up anywhere, and he's guaranteed to fill every seat in the house. Yet even when commanding the spotlight, he does so with utter kindness and professionalism.
A featured performer at this year's MusicVket, TFMJonny will be gracing the stage on June 24th for a special concert along with a dedicated lineup and special guest VJs. We managed to catch up with him before dress rehearsal recently, where he gave us his opinion about XR and streaming in general.
We have to begin with the obvious. What first brought you to virtual reality, and how did you then go from being a regular user to a virtual performer and livestreamer?
TFMJONNY: I always had an interest in new technology and VR was no exception. Almost invested in the first Oculus kickstarters back in the day, but I would eventually purchase a HTC Vive as my first headset. I was already making connections in the VRChat talent community in early 2018 on desktop. When I got my headset in April of 2018, I immediately started to devise a way to perform in VR.
Shortly after that, I worked with a few friends to start up the Star Collective talent community which is now known as Artifex. After every show I would do, people would ask if I was going to start streaming. So I just eventually just started doing exactly that.
You have a natural voice and are one of the best singers in VR, hands-down. Who are your musical influences? What albums did you listen to growing up?
TFM: I was lucky to grow up in the Napster generation so I didn’t really listen to albums, I listened to songs. My generation was the first to have uninhibited access to the world’s full catalog of music. We take it for granted now with services like Spotify. But before the internet and Napster, teenagers in their time of music discovery were limited to what they could afford to buy and what was marketed to them.
Through services like Napster (regardless of the legality) I was able to sample whatever music I wanted. I discovered great classic artists like Elton John, David Bowie, The Beatles and Cyndi Lauper. To this day my favorite music comes from the 60s, 70s and 80s eras.
Speaking of being a performer and Twitch streamer, you actually wear a lot of hats. When someone asks what you do, what do you tend to go with first?
TFM: I will always be a singer and musician, music is one of the most important things in my life. However in this stage of my content creation journey, given what content is the most popular, I say I am a comedian.
This isn’t unique in the entertainment industry at all. Lots of comedians are amazing and successful mainstream music artists as well. Great examples being Eddie Murphy and Bo Burnham, both of which are comedians I look up to.
What are some things you love about VRChat, and what do you wish would improve?
TFM: VRChat has been amazing for so many people in developing positive reinforcements for mental health. There is so much research that could be done to discover just how much VR and VRChat can be leveraged as a mental health tool. Especially in the LGBTQ+ community, VRChat allows people to realize a vision of themselves that they most identify with. I have so many transgender friends who literally say, VRChat saved their life.
As for what can improve, I would love to see mechanisms that allow the community to step up and do self-moderation. There are lots of great examples on the internet such as Reddit and Discord where community self-moderation works well to strike a balance and protect its members. I hope VRChat is one day able to achieve this as well.
Same for Twitch: what do you love most about the community, and what's something you think the service can do better?
TFM: Twitch is great for small creators, that’s what I love about it. I was able to make a living as a full time small creator and work my way up from the bottom. The crowdsourced funding model on Twitch will always allow for this type of thing and I’m so happy that services like YouTube are copying this model through things like Memberships and Super Cheers. This only serves to help grow smaller creators.
Where I think Twitch could do better is exactly in this regard. There seems to be a movement at Twitch Headquarters to leverage other revenue streams like Ads. This has led to Twitch tightening their TOS rules to be more advertiser friendly and banning streamers that would have otherwise been fine under old regulations.
Because Twitch was always a crowdfunded platform first, it allowed them to play more fast and loose with the rules. I worry that as they move away from this, they will lose the heart and soul of what made the platform so great and unique for creators in the first place.
You're passionate about many issues. What's your greatest cause right now? What do you want people to go out and learn more about, or get out of their seats for?
TFM: I’m a full time creator, so my biggest passions will be for the protection and growth of creators. Recently there seems to be a lot of talk around issues of censoring and moderating creators and their content for one reason or another. Whether you’re talking about the recent tightening of Twitch’s TOS, or YouTube’s handling of The Act Man, or TikTok's horribly inconsistent content violation flagging system.
Creators constantly seem to have their voices silenced for many unjust reasons. I don’t think anyone has a clear answer to the problem, we still need to protect viewers from actual bad content that still gets uploaded to these platforms as well. But I do think there is massive room for improvement.
You cross-promote a lot; there are many arguments that a "seamless metaversal world" would encompass not only social VR platforms, but Twitch and social media as well. How do you feel about that theory?
TFM: I think it’s a cool idea, but I don’t think anyone has cracked the code on this one just yet. Each platform has unique audiences and unique ways of posting and communicating content. I love that about the internet. If we try to push all of these different platforms together to make a ‘seamless internet’, I feel we would lose a lot of what makes each of them great.
You're also very into technology and VR in general. What new product are you eagerly awaiting? What's something you wish someone would create to make your daily VR life better?
TFM: I hope that more companies can get into VR and start providing mo
re competition in the space. I worry that after so many years of mainstream VR we still only have 2 or 3 major headset makers. I would love to see more choices for consumers.
As for something I'd love to see created, in the higher end VR space, I’d love to have a good wireless headset that is natively SteamVR compatible. The Quest with Virtual Desktop support got so many things right. For me, it is the gold standard wireless headset right now. However, there are a lot of trade offs because of Meta’s closed system and lack of support for SteamVR and the OpenVR standard.
If someone could make a Quest-like headset with Virtual Desktop support and wireless over Wifi6 technology that natively supports lighthouse driven SteamVR and FBT, they would have a hit headset on their hands in the high end consumer tier of VR.
The subject of making money off of artistic endeavors in virtual reality is a careful one to approach, because it gets personal quickly. VR represents a lot of different things to people–freedom, in its myriad of ways–and there's easily a clash when one's view of what virtual reality should be like doesn't line up with someone else's.
With so many metaversal artists now pursuing Patreon and other subscription services for funding, discussions are lighting up social media about whether or not this is the direction the community wants to go. Is the space suddenly made up of walking talking brands? Are people just trying to get a little money for their time? How does this end up affecting worlds like VRChat as a whole?
For some, the para-real is where you should freely share your talents and art with others, no price attached. Doing the opposite can create exclusivity, where only those who fork over the right amount of money have access to the cultural space you've just carved out. By being kept out, those unable to access it are seen as lesser somehow. That naturally brings in feelings of a class divide. It's a bitter feeling to run into the same aspects of real life that you were originally seeking to get away from in a virtual environment.
For others, it's a matter of survival: bills need to be paid, and maybe seeking work outside of VR hasn't been as forthcoming. Or maybe you're saving up for something, or the job you currently have IRL just isn't paying enough. Here is a platform where patrons are willing to pay, and you've got the magical supply. Why shouldn't you do what you do best here and get paid for it? Who says you can't?
For the sake of fairness, it should be said that The Metaculture has its own Patreon for optional donations. Still, this is a discussion that benefits the VR community to have, so let's have it. Major points of consideration and caveats will be presented here, and then the reader can decide for themselves which one they personally believe in. No one essay is going to "solve" a debate that will likely be indefinite, but it can help to present various viewpoints in one place.
Let's start with the obvious and work our way down.
Platforms Need Money To Keep The Servers Going, And That Money Comes From Somewhere
It's not even a "maybe": platforms like VRChat require money to keep its servers going and to host its maps. Your avatars, your content, it's stored somewhere and it requires moolah to keep it there. This has far-reaching consequences that doesn't even pop up right away when you're playing and creating here.
It is not a pretty fact. It has caused VRChat+ to exist, it will cause a market implementation, and it causes the company to accept deals of corporate presence within the game. The way to lessen that is to self-host maps that are linked to VRChat somehow, but that has its own set of problems.
Because it is what it is, culture cannot originate from the administration of VRChat itself. No culture can originate from a company propagating a virtual world as its product. It's a business. That's not what business does.
There Should Always Be A Way To Access Virtual Culture, And VRChat Being Free To Download Helps to Maximize This
The ability to download the game, create content for free, and affect culture within the virtual sphere is incredibly powerful. One day VR will grow to be even more mainstream; users who engage now are putting themselves ahead of the curve and developing skills that can change their lives in the future.
They are also finding refuge for expression. The religion you can't practice because you're worried about your safety or ridicule? VR's got you. Exploring gender and sexuality? You can do so from the comfort of your chair. Is your town limited on interest groups because most people there are a bit stupid? Just pop by VRCon and check out what you can join.
By the same token, users will always favor venues where it costs nothing to access them. Some might like when there's an aspect of exclusivity with a club or service, but the likelihood of them paying for such an experience diminishes as time passes with subscriptions. Because free venues aren't charging, it can be expected that more experimental culture will arise out of these spaces.
There should always be room for no-cost entertainment on VR platforms, because experimentation is what keeps virtual reality interesting and thriving.
Money Isn't The Only Currency In VR
Before the advent of music venues in 2020, the creative power in VRChat mostly rested in the hands of world builders. The group commanded the flow of the game and shouldered much of the platform's success in what they published. To this day, they are still the major content most users interact with. Platforms like VRChat would be nowhere without them.
Most, however, don't take money for their efforts. So why make free stuff? Applause is a hell of a drug, and to this day still drives a great number of creators to do what they do. If you aren't charging for your services, you might be doing it for the accolades you'd get by word or gesture. And if that's a driving force in a user's actions, they'll still behave similarly to someone running a Patreon anyway.
The attitude of a user who is in VR and creating work for their own end is someone who will behave that way, whether they're getting paid or not.
There Is Always Someone Profiting Off Of You
Whether you're doing something for compensation or out of personal desire, someone's pocketing the profits of your content. Your tweets? There are ads sandwiched between them. Your Booth page? Pixiv makes recommendations for paid products at the bottom of your listing. Your virtual worlds? The platform you're publishing it on is using those metrics to get more funding. If you don't profit, someone else is. Some artists have recognized this and are understandably asking for their cut.
Again–correct, not everything should be laced with ads. And again, the only way to completely avoid this to build a multi-user platform of your own and self-host it. There are artists out there experimenting with this already, and is totally possible to do. It has its own complications, but it very much advocated that artists have their own space to go when their platform of choice goes sideways.
It takes a lot of effort though, and most people choose to stay with larger platforms due to their ease of use.
Artists Burn Out Without Getting Anything In Return, But They Can't Rely On Longevity With Creative Careers In Virtual Environments Either
Without paid content, we wouldn't have artists continuing to provide as much high-quality avatars and worlds as we have now. People like getting compensated for their work, and they have every right to ask for that. Demanding free content from an artist puts you in danger of visiting "For Exposure" territory.
However, artists should be aware that online content markets are notoriously unstable. While in one stretch you can certainly pay your mortgage with it for a while, the safety net can easily break as soon as the platform you're operating in changes policy or decides to shutter. In this case, self-hosting is still the only solution to escape the problem completely. As said before, that comes with its own set of problems for the user to figure out.
Creatives Should Be Mindful Of Not Being Money-Minded
Right now, VR is growing and its social sphere is a bit fragile. That's why this conversation is so important–the people who deal with this issue every day, work in a relatively small community where their decisions affect others easily. If a large group of users decide to paywall their experiences suddenly, it will in the least affect the general air of how others interact with those users. If no balance is kept and things aren't open enough, development overall can become stifled.
In older games such as Second Life, business decisions taken too far with selling creative products ends up turning users away because of the overall feeling of greed. Even with larger userbases, things must feel open enough to where users don't feel constantly pressured to spend money. You've got to pay bills, but remember–users aren't towels you wring out for every last penny.
Here are some questions creators should ask themselves if they choose to run a brand:
Do you favor conversations about yourself when people speak to you? Do you take the initiative to engage with others about their own activities and lives? When is the last time you asked someone how they were doing?
Do you engage with happenings freely, i.e. don't just go to events because you think of it as a networking opportunity?
When you think of the irreverent part of the VR community, do you view the silliness as something to balance out the more serious aspects, or do you view it with disdain?
Are there days when you log into VR with no agenda to make money or further your networking opportunities whatsoever? What do you do on those days?
If you are a developer, how often do you actually use VR to have fun?
If you run a VR-centric social account online, who do you interact with? Are your mutual contacts people who use tech for fun and not just business?
It takes a community to make VR what it is. Without its users, virtual reality is just some neat-looking software. Ultimately, the difference between a successful platform and a failed one is how much players and admins are listening to each other–and, leaving the door open for others to be able to easily join you.
Our series of music round-ups covers sound you'll only find in virtual reality, produced by artists who socialize and work there. From acoustic to hardstyle techno, what's sonically relevant is being documented with us.
If you find an artist you like, click through the track information to give that person a follow (and buy something!). Your support is what keeps them making music–and we always love new sounds.
How do music tours work in VRChat? Much like real life, VR-based nightclubs are picked as spaces to host an artist's performance, which can be stretched out over several weeks to build up hype and attendance numbers. Because each venue in VRChat can reach a maximum capacity of users, a tour gives attendees a greater chance to get into the instance an artist is performing in, thus sharing space with them and giving them that "in-person" feeling.
This is not the first tour held in VR by a performing artist. One famous landmark of the practice was MUZZ's Virtual Reality Tour, held last April. Since then, MUZZ has gone on to host SANCTUM, a monthly Patreon-supported event featuring specially-crafted visuals and live VR dancers.
Here's a set from Onumi performing at Sanctum in December '21:
The Tentacle Tour is being sponsored by Trap Nation. Click here to check out venue listings and dates.
Want more of Onumi's music? You're in luck. She's just released Ethereal Cyber Angel, a hyper-BPM track comprised of 6 genres stretched across 8 minutes. Press play and get dancing:
Essenger Reaches Out
Essenger is a well-known name in the realm of synthwave, so it surprised us to see a message from him cross our desk. There's a great reason, though: he's currently donating all profits for his new release, Griefling, to support children displaced by the Ukraine invasion.
He tells us: "Griefling is a raw reminder of the fragility of life, loosely from the point of view of a young animal, but also can be interpreted differently depending on the listener. Though I wrote this song before the current turn of events, I'm currently donating all sales from this song toward relief and shelter for children displaced by the war in Ukraine."
Pain Princess is a talented producer of the VR music realm. This time, they've got a new take on an anthem to share.
"[This] remix," writes Pain Princess, "is inspired by 2010-2014 era footwork tracks, often used during dance battles. No kick drum sample, low end heavy, with a focus on off-kilter rhythms, syncopation, and repetition. As apposed to the original which leans more into modern genre influences."
What is footwork? It's been taking over a subsection of VR-based producers and DJs this year. Originating from Chicago, footwork is a genre of electronic music with a fast rhythm derived from ghetto house. More here at Wikipedia. Here's also a sample of a street battle in which the music is associated.
Merino Hoes was originally a song created by Velatix and Mirror 3ARTH. Pain Princess remixes the anthem into something deeper and more subversive.
While the VR music scene is often its own high-energy, self-contained world that outsiders need to dig to find, LLLL and music label King Deluxe has managed to create a music video and corresponding VR-based show that's become the talk of the wider XR community.
First, the music. King Deluxe says in their press release: "This music video was directed by Konstantin Enste, his wonderful interpretation of Silent Dawn, which was used as the name of a sentient ship, taking its human adventurer all over the galaxy in his search."
LLLL's RAIN release party was held on May 7th, 2022 at the VRChat venue The Core. In attendance was Voices of VR reporter Kent Bye, who was so impressed that his thread on the activities set off a chain of visits by curious industry colleagues.
1/ @king__deluxe's THE CORE club in #VRChat has some of the best explorations of spatial VR art mixed with chill indie music I've seen.
Here's a photo thread unpacking moments from their release party for @LLLLTOKYO's RAIN yesterday + why I found it so compelling. pic.twitter.com/989oumGhGT
Be sure to read through Kent Bye's thread, and check out the attached videos. They show just why artists now love doing tours in VR–it's an amazing tool for providing visuals for ones' music, that can't be created the same way in reality.
TVPPS Stands Strong
TVPPS is a regularly featured composer here: varied and talented, their melodies show range while also speaking to the heart of many. We think they have a bright future. This time, they've sent in Still Standing, a song about resilience in a moment of uncertainty.
"Still Standing is a blend of vocal/orchestral with future riddim and melodic dubstep, mixing my vocals and a lush soundscape with heavy metallic sounds and hypnotic arps," TVPPS says.
Welcome To HakiSume's Temple
We love the fringe feeling of HakiSume's Sidechain Temple, a four-track release of clever samples and high-tempo beats. We listened to this and thought, "This has the Vibe Tribe sound," and lo and behold! They are indeed an associated act.
This is one producer to keep your eye on. We look forward to what they make in the future.
"I've been exploring different genre's of music when it comes to production, and wanted to try flipping a track into a moombahton track since I grew up hispanic," he explains. "[I was] influenced by reggaetón and hip hop growing up, and wanted to put those two elements together to make this tune."
Along with footwork, there's been an increase of Latin music coming up in sets across the VR music scene. We're all the better for it, honestly.
General TsoLit Releases A Snippet
There are times when producers send in small samples for listeners to try out. So is the case with General TsoLit, who explains, "I like making little beats for my own enjoyment. Hope others enjoy it too."
It's a tasty snack. Give it a try.
Fifty Shades Of Sendoff
We want to end this installment of the Music Round-Up with a hilarious submission from Electro Punk82, who produced this mix as a raunchy memorial to Gilbert Gottfried. Please be warned: this submission is incredibly NSFW.
Even though the track is absolutely filthy, the explanation behind it is thoughtful:
"This was our first take at sampling and we wanted to make a track similar to Kriss-DM's Uncle Roger, heavily techno oriented, rumble kicks all built from scratch. When we did what we did during the process, we were dying HARDCORE while making this on a livestream.
More importantly, we wanted to make a tribute to an iconic voice, Rest in peace, thank you for the laughs.
We encourage others to take this and mess with it even more, we know the music community can pull some really cool stuff, we are eager to see what others can create with it. We may make a proper Redux of this in the future, but that's [a "later us"] problem.
Music samples we used are from the Millennium Strike Demo Disc, Type R – Ego Adero, ASL – Strip Club Behaviour. This would not have been possible without them."
That's all for the music round-up this time! We hope you found something you liked here.
The light leaks reflect off of each beautiful facet of 0void.io’s crystalline, spherical structures in a distinctly alien way. Floating over the surface of an otherworldly landscape in posted videos, the objects appear as beacons of scifi-flavored meditation and enlightenment. Of course, that’s what they’re intended to be. Each specially created orb is designated as a “seed”, sold on the Ethereum blockchain.
0void.io is the brainchild of VR-based musician OM3. Having begun his journey in NFTs by selling monochromatic art on Hic Et Nunc, he later branched out with a broader concept. The plan was to introduce a new universe with generative “seed” designs, then progress to 3D avatars and spaceships to willing customers. In between, there would be broadcasts of meditation sessions and regular updates on 0void.io’s lore.
With such an airtight plan, only a little turbulence was expected by the time the initial social media announcement arrived on February 15th, 2022. What instead followed were heated conversations driven by the VRChat community: where does crypto fit in with VR, and does its userbase accept it?
Intent is the name of the game when it comes to managing a persistent, digital world.
VR and cryptocurrency have had a contentious relationship, but much deeper is the conversation of money and its place in social VR platforms. Visit Decentraland, and working with a wallet to go about your daily business is the norm. In VRChat, blockchain technology has been prohibited outright in mention and marketing. The slow progressing pattern of more and more virtual creators adopting Patreon had its own backlash on social media in late 2021, leading some to lob the insult of “going corporate” at select creators who fashioned expensive enough tiers.
Curious marketers who were busy trying to figure out the digital landscape would be unaware of this, but the philosophical war waged over these issues would lead to a cautious distrust of any brand making headway for social VR’s shores.
For OM3, the implementation was about adding the right flavors to the dish. Some aspects of 0void.io’s launch were edited, after feedback, to omit any possibly offensive adaption of real-life religions. The project now continues on a planned trajectory.
“I was happy to get honest feedback from people,” OM3 recalls now. “Since my intention is to create things that are helpful or entertaining, I have no problem reassessing what I am projecting based on that feedback.”
And that includes making sure nothing comes across as co-opted, even when he didn’t intend for it to be. “I will always go out of my way to adjust my lens and adjust course when I feel it’s the right thing to do. You learn with any project that you release at a certain scale that you are going to have to make some changes to things that you didn’t consider.”
The philosophical war waged over these issues would lead to a cautious distrust of any brand making headway for social VR’s shores.
Intent is the name of the game when it comes to managing a persistent, digital world. Image and branding go hand-in-hand, and a successful meeting of the two can create a giant establishment that, in reality, might be run by a small team. But the wrong decisions can scare users into feeling pressured by that establishment, or feeling a slant of favoritism where there might not be any.
Case in point: on April 23rd, VRChat published a tweet announcing the Shelter x VRWorld event taking place in New York. Shelter has been a virtual nightclub within VRChat’s platform for more than a year now; this the second planned real-life gathering taking place, and the festivities are even bigger this time around.
While VRChat’s Twitter account does an even job of covering various things happening on their platform, this time there was a hitch–branding the party as “The World’s First VR Portal night”. VRChat users responded angrily; cross-portal events have not only happened at MAGfest earlier this year, but at VancuFUR the year before that, and at a special limited performance at the now-defunct VR venue D3ATHCLUB.
Speaking on the mis-post, Tupper, VRChat Head of Community, responded: “I believe the copy was intended to state that the ‘first’ was the concept of having a large scale live show with DJs present both IRL and in VR via a “portal night”. The wording wasn’t great, and it could’ve been better.”
Angelika Lee, Brand Relations for VRWorld and the upcoming Shelter event, spoke to The Metaculture of the first-portal distinction: “Events you are referring to are trade show type; not nightlife entertainment.”
Which doesn’t exactly jive with either response when previous examples of cross-portal events still involve music and live DJ performances, and aren’t all taking place at conventions. The proclamation gives the impression of rushing to be first at something–another mistake for any tech-related business to do, and which often get corrected whenever a similar announcement is released with the claim.
Shelter is taking huge strides with their event, but in the future any companies in the periphery might have to be careful with how they present information.
Speaking to further clarify business partnerships, Shelter co-creator 2TD responded to The Metaculture: “Shelter and VRWorld aren’t VRChat partners. VRC only provided the quote retweet like they do for other events using VRC. There’s no business partnership. The only involvement is the retweet and some of their team showing up to the event.”
Without speaking up and covering their bases, users’ imaginations can run wild, and all of these incidents together would otherwise paint an ugly, intimidating picture. VRWorld has also been host to NFT events and takes payment of cryptocurrency at their venue. Then, there’s the table service tickets on the Shelter x VRWorld Eventbrite page, which costs upwards to $3,000. While there’s reasonable explanation for these existing, The Metaculture sought to get a clear quote to eradicate doubt anyway.
Angelika Lee speaks about the extravagant bank vault package: “Table prices show minimum spend required, and come with liquor of choice, beverages, and water. Besides our insane infrastructure and tech capabilities, VR World has two bars inside. No one will be left thirsty.”
So, it’s just a nightclub table for fifteen people to drink about $200 worth of liquor per person. There are similar table arrangements for eight and ten people respectively.
And about the NFTs and crypto association with VRWorld? “We aspire a number of communities, being inclusive has always been in VR World’s DNA. Certainly the main focus is on the community at hand, not NFTs or blockchain,” says Lee.
In either business scenario, there’s a minefield to step around and users to be sure they aren’t making uncomfortable. In the case of both Shelter and 0void.io, the trick is in where you tread and how you look while doing it.
The past year has seen an incredible proliferation of talent within VRChat’s music community. Where previously there were only a few virtual clubs for users to attend in 2020, it is no longer possible to cover every venue that exists there in a single article.
With Oculus selling headsets to new audiences over the Christmas season, the community is set to expand again in new ways that will affect crowd dynamics, even possibly spilling over to other virtual platforms. This will push up the number of clubs that exist, establish more niche venues, and prevent any one stage from remaining its true center.
Chevette enjoys a display of fireworks for Dieselworks' New Years Eve party.
The effect this will have on VRChat’s users is a positive one: new musicians getting started can find an easier time of grabbing an audience. More experienced and longstanding performers can easily keep their crowd, but may begin to consider other ways in which they can advertise themselves outside of their usual virtual haunts.
Live performance measures, such as singing and non-electrical instruments, are also seeing cross-promotion with musicians who work in both fields. Bringing these clubs into the picture expands what’s already in VRChat–showing just how vast the virtual music community truly is.
The Metaculture is proclaiming 2022 as the VR music scene’s year of decentralization. Here are some things you might see happening in the coming months as a result.
Graffiti and stickers of various performers on VRChat's New Years Eve display.
The Amount of Venues Will Rise, Peak, And Plateau By Summer
As of now, new talent is registering their accounts, exploring hotspots, and introducing themselves. Some new venues will also emerge from community members who have been involved in things for a while. Whatever the case, these new hotspots will gain traction in the thread of counterculture (meaning what’s popular thought now may not be by late spring), and either merge or fall away by the time summer arrives. And as with last year, the first club’s failure doesn’t mean a venue manager is out—they can possibly come back even stronger with an improved concept, taking the lessons they learned from previous attempts to make an even better map.
Users play arcade machines at Club LIT.
The “Entertainment Complex Venue“ Might Gain More Popularity
The Castle rents virtual condominiums in its space to Patreon donors, as well as the perk of a hidden bowling alley somewhere in its expansive building. Meanwhile, LIT has installed working arcade machines that let users earn points while they dance the night away. Can this sequel to Big American Style clubs make a chance at growth this year? It’s possible someone who visits these worlds will get inspired, have a twist on the idea, and build their own take. What if someone combined an Udon Chip arcade with condominiums to rent? What if it turns out to be incredibly profitable?
MoetheLawn performing at The Dice.
Looking To Beat Primetime Event Saturation, A Few American-Side Clubs Might Expand Into Afternoon Shows
On a Saturday afternoon, Team Muse holds cross-continent concerts once a month to nearly 500 views over the span of several hours. The secret is in the combined efforts of their live performance team, comprised of a dedicated group of light and sound workers, singers who interact with their streaming audience in VRChat and their Twitch channel at the same time, and guitarists who play impressive solos that are worth their salt on any real-or-virtual stage. The popularity of this concept can easily appeal to other organizers, and can inspire them to try earlier performance times to entice new listeners.
A Team Muse concert with SporkofLove on stage.
Some Artists Will Grow Their Brand To A Variety Of Virtual Platforms
VRChat may always be an artists’ main performance home, but it doesn’t mean it has to be the only stage they’ll visit. Currently, more performers are signing up at Club Cyberia and experimenting with putting on shows in Final Fantasy XIV. This exchange can also lead new musicians from those communities into VRChat, enacting a sort of cultural exchange in the process.
Iron Biscuit spins at Techneu.
We Might See More Virtual Musicians Speaking At Real-Life Conferences
Let’s face it: VR-centric conferences right now are either strictly technical with deep knowledge, or are held by business teams who have no idea what they’re talking about. This space is ripe for musicians, who have honed their skills with the execution of live events and Unity tricks to give their maps a sparkle, to join panels where they can talk about their success and challenges in tech and marketing. The ones who have a better time of it will bring exactly what marketing firms want to hear: how the hell do you sell a product in VR? There are users who know, and a small amount of artists can cash in on this knowledge.
Community membes Engage and Kaizen, wearing avatars with audio-reactive elements and glowing details. Fashion in VR can often includ
e elements that react to the space a user is a part of.
It’s Going To Become Incredibly Niche In Here
And that’s good, because anyone who joins will be able to find an avenue for them. Want to attend a blues bar and try your hand at singing? That might be a thing this year. Want to team up with a producer who’s interested in a band-style project? There are plenty around, and we could begin to see functioning duos rise up and become popular from their virtual beginnings. There’s going to be a stage for whatever you want to do, and a group to welcome you when you don’t feel welcome anywhere else.
And that leads to the next effect: choice. Where there are scant offerings in a space, there is worse behavior and more toxicity. A larger scene means performers understand their crowd will move on if said performer treats their fellow community members badly.
Community member Nurse_uwu attending a Monolith set.
A solid moderation team will be necessary to navigate the field of tomorrow’s challenges as they come. More experienced venues might have this down, but smaller groups have the advantage of more intimacy, and better control on issues if they arise.
VRChat is ready for its next generation of artists and performers, and soon the community will be so large that it will not be possible to know everyone within it. The upside? The reality it brings to virtual reality. More normalcy, less of a hyperfocus on popularity. “Just play music”, as a motto of the artist enclave Dieselworks goes. This just might be the year when true culture begins to bloom forth.
The Metaculture began as a place to put longer articles that weren't a fit for magazines with a limited word count. We had a desire to dive deeper on specific tech-related subjects, and wanted to do so in a space that allowed for that to happen.
From this, grew a small publication that's been helpful in directing various readers, journalists and users alike, to niche spaces within VR for further exploration. So far, we've made some pretty big connections (as big as CNN!) that we're very proud of.
But from these accomplishments grow more questions, and more voices wanting to join the fray. How does one begin writing about VR culture? What constitutes a good subject for criticism and review?
Here's a guide on what we publish for anyone interested, plus some tips on finding your own way through this developing field.
This set of recommendations assumes you know the basics of article writing, and are just looking for extra pointers to help you get started.
What Does The Metaculture Write About, Exactly?
There's some discrepancy with what the publication looks for in writing articles. This might be a helpful list for others looking to get into writing about VR, too.
We cover:
Major developments in multiplayer XR and MMOs
Historical throwbacks in MMOs, dying worlds and related tech
Benchmarks and major events in VR
Essays and reviews relating to the like.
We do not cover:
The personal, private lives of artists (unless they specifically request it, fits our publication, or is historically significant to know the details in how it affects a VR world)
Salacious rumors
Limited POVs of an event
If you write about a general event in VR, try to get multiple sources and interviews. Try to also get one person's opinion who has an opposing view of what's happening in order to round out your article. Everyone inevitably writes with a bias, but you should try to make your view as neutral as possible when presenting information.
Where Should I Host My Articles?
It's recommended to host any articles you write on your own website if they aren't being published by anyone else. Online writing platforms shift a lot in scope and revenue generation plans, and often writers can get the short end of the stick when this happens. But if you're looking to get started and don't have any money to spend, we recommend Medium and Substack as suitable places to house your writing. Be sure to keep backups of any articles you upload–you might move to another service one day, and will want an easy way to take your work with you.
What Makes For A Good Interview Subject?
Not everyone is what we call "media-ready". A media-ready person is someone who is comfortable with answering questions with a journalist, is perfectly at ease in front of the camera, and realizes their name/username/likeness will be seen by a public audience. Usually article subjects who are media-ready are people who are already selling something, such as a Twitch streamer or public personality. They want the spotlight because they can use it in turn to receive more followers. Writing about such a person involves a mutual exchange, and makes for a great interaction.
Some caution should be applied if you believe your work will lead you to interview a private user. A "private user" is someone who, although they might have social media accounts, doesn't actively seek the spotlight in any way. Some private users are still performers, but they don't engage in performance art for monetary gain. Ask this person if they are okay with being interviewed for what you're writing about, and then ask again if they're comfortable with that article being read by a public audience they might not know.
How Serious Should My Article Be?
Imagine picking up a newspaper to thumb through it. Everything is positive–good vibes, bro and peace love unity respect. It all ends great. There's no hard questions, there's no interviews with anyone who might be worried about anything going wrong. It's fake, plastic, boring. That's not how the real world works.
The real world isn't all doom and gloom, either. You don't turn the corner and see dour updates everywhere you look. Too much of either positive or negative, and you end up mentally checking out. Keep that in mind as you write.
Life is a random assortment of ups and downs, and you are a reflection of the world as someone covering a facet of it. Write about news that makes you joyful and believe in VR as a medium, but also ask questions and point out when a group of users or devs are hurt or upset over something.
What Makes A Performer Ready For Art Criticism?
As the number of performers in VR grow and diversify, eventually reviews of their work will arrive. Here's a brief outline of what we look for before we assign critical feedback of a VR-based performer. The reviewee doesn't need to fit all of these, but they should fit most of this criteria:
They are doing what they do for money (Patreon, ticket sales, etc).
Their presence in their field is a major one: if they say or do something, it has a considerable affect on others or may change the scope of the entire field.
They have been nominated for or have received a prestigious award.
They have similar industry associations who regularly interact with them, VR-related or not.
They have enough experience and work behind them to indicate maturity in their methods.
In other words, don't review new artists unless they specifically request it. You will harm them and potentially stifle their growth. Let that artist grow first, and then you can look back at their respective work to give honest enough feedback on where they can improve.
Does This Mean Someone Can Criticize Me Too?
You didn't think the sword just pointed one way, did you?
Your readers will criticize you, first and foremost. They're your customers! They will rightfully complain if you aren't doing your job, and they will send in requests if they want you to cover something specific. Take it as a compliment and keep reaching for new heights in your writing.
Investigative reports always inevitably get a complaint. This is why it's imperative to be neutral, and interview subjects from all sides of the issue.
Do You Have Any More Tips?
Never write angrily. Wait a day and write then.
Snark is for op-eds, not general coverage.
Even if you don't like someone on a personal level, if you are aiming to write about a field historically then you have an obligation to mention its major figures. However, if that figure is abusive or otherwise toxic in some way, it's fine to neutrally
present their abuses as a sidenote. Check out Wikipedia articles for how this is handled.
Other reporters are not your rivals, they're your friends. You will learn in time that trading tips is important. Offer to be there for them if they need it. All of you are searching for the truth in this world; that's what binds you.
Think about the scope of who want to be as a writer before you answer that sensational article call with a larger publication.
Last but not least: there's always someone reading, so keep digging.
Please note that I Love Events(TM) is not associated with Linden Research, Inc. or any of its affiliated companies or products, including Second Life (collectively known as "Linden Lab"). The opinions and views expressed on this site belong to the content creators and do not represent the views or opinions of Linden Lab or its employees, directors, officers, agents, or representatives. The usage of the SLBN logo by I Love Events(TM) does not indicate endorsement or representation by Linden Lab.
