Vourtron returns with his…Proposal for the first baby steps into “The Matrix.”
1. First off, I’d like to say that I consider these things to be “cyberspace”- video games, social media (just Facebook, really), and actual goggle-wearing cyberspace, which no one does.
2. I had an idea one time for an App, or Program, as I’d like to call it, called something like “AD WARS”, where ads would pop up, and then if you thought that you could really blast a friend with a good add, and they had the same app, then you could make it pop up on their phone. Once it popped up on their phone, they would either have the choice to kill it (if death was all that it was worthy of), or if there was anything about the add that they liked, they could click a “similar to” button, or a “send on” button, or something, to either retaliate with a more deadly ad or to explode the add onto multiple people’s phones.
Hmmmm…. Does that sound stupid? Well, you haven’t thought through the consequences. In this environment, ads would become very aggressive in their outrageousness, to avoid destruction at first appearance, and the whole experience would be a “pickle surprise”-esque “everything is horrible” type festival of ads whose purpose and function would be to go viral, and there would be an infrastructure to do it.
You could get points based on how many ads you could send to your friends that didn’t get destroyed. There could be bonus attacks where you fill their screen with popups. Instead of checking all the time for “likes”, you could check for new ads.
3. Another video game that I haven’t thought through, but am aware that there is an incredible “latent demand” for, is one called “Facebook Player”. The goal of this one would be to see how right-wing, left-wing, gay, Christian, cop-block, Monsanto, cute, misogynist, pot, Isis, or plain vanilla busybody you could get your feed to be. With a point system for extremes as well as perfect balance, and bonuses with things like extra clicks in secret places to open new realms of politics, depravity, or friendship.
Now, the points of these ideas are:
1. I play shmups. When playing shmups, It’s very much about the journey, rather than the destination, for me. But the whole experience is ALSO immediately quantified by another thing that is right there, all the time- the score.
2. You think these game ideas are to silly?? I think that the things that those apps handle would be incredibly easy to score. I think the play mechanics would be fun, creative, and rewarding, and I think that most people would agree with me, if they really thought it through, that the non-scored versions, which arbitrarily TOTALLY DEFINE our cyberspace experiences, are…. boring? Leave us wanting more? Make us feel not-in-control, like commodities that our robot and corporate overlords are exploiting for thumb-press energy, while fooling us with the promise of a “real” virtual-reality where we can interact and express ourselves, pretty much just like in “The MATRIX”?
I can express myself on Twitter, Instagram, and other social media that pretty much just passes on my messages to my network. And, on the flip side, ironically, in another medium, where I exist within contexts so restrictive that the only thing there are rules that cannot be broken, outside of a (by comparison) indescribably tiny narrative, I can express myself-particularly, to myself (which is the ultimate cyberspace), by playing video games.
So BAM! In the ISHThole of 2015 cyberspace which is Facebook, Android, Apple, Microsoft, streaming TV, companies selling devices with the sole intention of owning you more and more after you’ve bought it- please let me still express myself within your fake-ass virtual reality. Let me play them as games. Let me have a score.
3. I’m still addicted to virtual reality. I think you should celebrate diversity, and “virtual reality” is it. But that lack of control, that inability to interact in a meaningful way- to feel like you can express yourself (I’m just talking about Facebook), has led a lot of my friends to “take the pill” (which means to turn off their Facebook).
And, remember how MySpace blah blah blah Facebook blah blah blah and “what is the next social media experience going to be”? I think that what I’ve described here- I’ll call it “the game oriented participation with 2015’s very real ‘matrix’ of virtual reality”- could be a viable answer.
4. *BONUS*
I should also add, that while these games are already being played by the corporate world with Facebook and advertising everywhere, (with us as the sprites instead of the players), the gravity of this new virtual reality isn’t lost on me. The points of view, love, hate, truth, lies, good, bad, of Facebook’s (not to simplify this article, but to describe the scale of an individuals insignificance in the equation, I guess I’ll also add “and all of our corporate overlords”) ……the points of view of Facebook’s and all our corporate overlord’s 2015 Virtual Reality are heavier, more dense, and more diverse than …. cable TV, satellite TV, all news stations, and radio combined. It really is a matrix, and it’s an incredibly important and new one. And it’s secretly getting boring for lack of ways to interact with it (the way to interact with TV, the old way, was to hold still and observe. Then go shopping). And it sucks. And I want more.
-Vourtron