VR Chat: An introvert's Nightmare

Have you ever dreamed of being the only adult chaperone at a middle-school Chuck’E’Cheese outing? Have no fear, VR Chat is here.

This week some friends and I started to dive into VR Chat, in order to try to see what it was all about. To be perfectly honest, I hated it. As a purely visual experience, it was honestly fantastic: the breadth of spaces with great designs, cool aesthetics, and avatars that matched the world were all fantastic, but fundamentally (for me) the “Social” aspect of this social VR experience was never anything better than uncomfortable.

I like to consider myself a fairly friendly person, but bring thrown into environments where everyone is anonymous, behind strange and out-of-place avatars, often also just being children screaming over each other - I just wanted to be away from the crowd in almost every single ‘world’ I visited. I loved the idea of exploring these spaces quietly and introspectively, but rather it felt like being in a kid’s arcade on Halloween, and it wasn’t an experience I’d particularly like to repeat. Maybe some folks love the anonymity of the spaces - and I’m fine with abstracted anonymity if there’s a common goal, such as in online team games or MMOs - but I couldn’t shake the discomfort.

That being said, if you’ve got some spaces that might give me a different taste of the medium, I’d love to try it out! I’m always happy to give it another shot :)