The Neo-Metaversal Narcissus
"Staring through a Digital Mirror,
Through the false self,
Into the Synthetic Sunset.
Only the blinking clusters of LCD Pixels remain.
Only the Void."
It took some years to piece certain things together about the state of the world. Much internal anguish, strange behaviours, observations of fellow denizens of parts of the net. Time in "The Trenches" of the mind, as some have come to say. All the while I had taken a back seat in my own mind, letting "life" happen, but not a healthy, or arguably real one.
This is a discussion/story/pseudo-autobiography/observational study of an arc of my life ranging from 2018-[PRESENT DAY;PRESENT TIME].
Of course, with many things nowadays, things started to hit an unending downward spiral sometime before the dreaded event that was the Neo-Un-Plague, one of the final nails in the coffins of the psyche of the modern world. I had followed a pursuit in the deep sciences, a long gone path further and further from spirituality. Seeking answers as one does, chasing dreams of studying the Universe itself, down the rabbit hole of the Quantum, to the Anti-World that may exist beyond, the dark forces that glue and tear the fabric of spacetime, and more wonders of the universe. But alas, thanks to the state of many things (that are a whole other topic in themselves), broke something fundamental within my psyche. After staring at pages and pages and pages and pages of equations, just endless strings of Integrals, Wave Functions, Transforms, useless scribbles on paper that I was told was absolutely necessary to being given the chance at the privilege to perhaps study more and eventually get the chance to work in the fields I desired. I saw nothing, no wonder of the world, nothing useful that would help me live my life in a fulfilling manner. Simply letters and numbers for theoretical things, not for me, no real answers. I stopped. That was it, no more point in trying, I was too deep to try anything else, too slave-indebted to some lowly branch of The Committee to switch to other fields. The thing I spent my whole life chasing vanished out of my grasp between the Integrals of a Wave Function.
And so I let the Proto-Animal take over, the Thinking Man was tired, he locked himself away deep within the dungeons of the Mind Palace, along with where the Religious Man had gone long ago. It was the era of the Proto-Animal for some time chasing base hungers and distractions, consuming endless slop and hibernating in a dark room during the day, some apathetic nocturnal creature who only woke to eat and stare at a monitor. Some outside factors attempted to coax out the Thinking Man offering some solutions and ways to course-correct the errors made in the choices in pursuing education, he was fooled. He listened and put himself deeper in the red to try again, lengthening the timeline he would need to gain his silly piece of paper that would allow him to pretend like he could work in the fields he wished. This was a mistake. He tried, but the courses got harder and more soulless, more endless equations of dry unquenching nothing. And thus he handed the reigns back to the Proto-Animal who unconsciously wished to end itself with consumption. Consumption of endless ultra-processed slow-release heart-stopping poison. [AVAILABLE AT A FAST FOOD JOINT NEAR YOU!] and mind numbing ultra-processed recreation substance [AVAILABLE AT A GOVERNMENT DISPENSARY NEAR YOU!].
The Thinking Man retreated further and further, uncaring, apathetic to the degradation of the body and mind. Shaken to "normalcy" some months later to enter flesh-automaton capital-acquisition mode. Meanwhile, a late summer far away romance ignited, pulling the long dead and buried Romantic back from the depths. Hope had returned again to a weary existence. Love? For the first time in 4 years and only the second time ever at the time. Maybe it was possible, a new future opened before me, something long thought impossible. Something to work towards. Perceived Love is quite the motivator
Everything was looking up leading into that winter, had started exercising, eating healthy, going to a therapist to air out my woes, socializing more once again. All normal functional human things (albeit the pre-existing dissociation from my degree and courses).
When suddenly the light of hope blinked out. Sometime right after my 21st birthday, I was alone again. That blossoming affection was snuffed out like nothing, no explanation or closure until it was far far too late. I thought I was in love at the time but I suppose it was not mutual. Then the real shutdown began, what would one expect of someone who already had major trust issues having been burnt so many times in the field of "love". Of course, wonderful timing for a majorly heart-broken and already cripplingly lonely lad, within 2 months, the era of the Neo-Un-Plague began, roommates left, I was truly alone now. Only a couple far away friends to message here and there.
Couldn't go out, no one around, Uni closed, lifelines detached, had to wait to move away. Trust in people had been annihilated, truly a flurry of poor circumstance on top of an already damaged heart and psyche. Needed a way out so I wouldn't truly go mad.
At the time I had no desire/inkling for creative endeavours as that was an aspect of the self that was even longer put to sleep as a child. That would not re-emerge in full force for some time. So, I needed some form of interaction that was more than just words on a screen, or infrequent disembodied voices in a call. Something more nourishing than watching films and shows alone.
Thus, the "Siren Call of the Wired" was heard, experienced via memetic postings in my corners of the net. "Come on down to [VRChat] for a wacky time!" See, initially, it was more for the prospect of socialization aspect, and I had no VR setup (yet) of course, so desktop mode it was! What a terrible mistake this was. (I inevitably did acquire the full setup though...)
It started simple enough, wandering various popular worlds that most newcomers went to, interreacting with all sorts of creatures from across the planet. Arguably one could say this period was mostly exploration of the surface layer of the Metaversal realm, as the sleezy underbelly had not yet been revealed. Here though, began the first bit of interesting observation on behaviour. A decent majority of people on here were always lounging around in front of mirrors and staring at themselves rather than directly at each other while they chatted. It makes some sense, it's some kind of reinforcement of immersion. Seeing yourself move, speak, gesture, emote, in the skin of something or someone else assists one to escape the reality of being in one's room alone.
This layer of anonymity really brought out the internal lives of most people, a world-server spanning cacophony of everyone's innermost thoughts, urges, desires. All inhibitions eroded by the screens strapped to one's eyes as well as the copious substance abuse found within the endless party worlds. Of course, with this, came the added compilation of swirling and mixing mental illness and addiction that only bounced off all of the others and amplified tenfold.
I already had an addictive personality and a fragile/damaged heart with a deep insatiable void within it, so one could easily guess how this went. Here I considered going on some long multi-year recap tangent of my eternal struggle to find love and companionship in this strange Digital Samsara, the many broken hearts and chasing false affection and going through seemingly endless cycles of getting too attached to someone, only to get hurt and tossed aside once they got bored. But alas, there is no need, simply stated: I never found what I was searching for. All I got was an even more severe split in my mind of warring aspects of myself with no real balance to be found.
Luckily (I suppose), that strange ability to sort of backseat everything I dealt with came in handy for all of this. Still going through the motions of wandering strange places, but also able to make internal (albeit passive) observations of everything I encountered over the years. Others though, I noticed, were able to fully shut down that part of them that hated it all, and just let themselves be swallowed whole by the VR Hellscape. A sort of "Man pretending to be a Lizard in a Lizard bar, where all the other lizards had already lost their humanity." (His humanity would fade in and out as well over the thousands of hours spent within the Wired.)
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe." Is the most apt statement I could make about my experiences in such places. I would say that the constant self-awareness during all of this was quite awful, sometimes it would've been nice to just shut off like the others. Though it appears there must have been some reason I was made to consciously bear witness to many things. Perhaps only to be able to regale the readers of this with whispers of the strangeness deep within the net.
To get to the core of the strange patterns that I was able to notice as they evolved and developed from the aforementioned swirling concoction of mental illness, substance abuse and all the like - lead to interesting and widespread group behaviour. This is where I coined the term "Neo-Metaversal Narcissus", to describe this pathos that infected most of the people within the VR realm. Derived from the simple baseline of staring at mirrors or hovering cameras to watch oneself as Narcissus did in the infamous tale. It spread beyond this, into people becoming significantly more self-centered and self-serving to a detrimental degree. Although in many cases it was almost subconsciously, as if they just let the undertow of the Wired drag them off without putting up a fight.
At first it was rather normal, meet new individuals, form a small group/clique/"friend" group and go on as normal. What began to occur early on though, was these groups began to quickly revolve around singular individuals, and placed them on pedestals above the rest, refusing to function or do anything at all unless they were involved - these individuals all quickly slipped into being streamers or avatar creators or artists. Groups would get inundated and drowned out by hundreds of new orbiters, groups would bifurcate and splinter, creating a dozen new smaller cliques, but again, each revolving around specific individuals.
Now this would repeat and repeat and repeat, seemingly fractally-infinitely. I quickly formed the habit of jumping ship the second I got a whiff of this kind of behaviour because it disgusts me to my core. Losing beloved people to the sea of micro-celebrity frivolity. An extension of this issue is people began to quickly stop being real, all they could ever discuss was empty slop that had no significance or substance, mostly about content/games/other streamers. This all would occur over about a 2 year timespan at first, but it exponentially began to accelerate in timeline to the point where as of the last year, these groups would last less than a couple weeks (some records being in days). They would just expand unchecked until they disintegrated, scattering people to the wind constantly, most seemed unbothered or if anything had such rotted attention spans that it was normal/a relief for them to bounce to completely new cliques every other week and completely abandoning any contacts they'd made in each cycle.
It was also increasingly rare to encounter people who were even self aware of what awful creatures they had become (or perhaps always were underneath). Very few remain who are still decent friends and human beings. They had not become Cyberhusks as most others did, although many still willingly adventure into the debauchery that occurs down in the underbelly of the wired, habit? addiction? boredom? Hard to say why anyone does such things, perma-VR netizens are a strange breed of people that may never be fully understood. This is no Snow Crash...
It is a dangerous temptress, the "Siren Call of the Wired". I still find myself occasionally compelled by some bizarre burnt-in habit, to be sitting within that now relatively lonesome false realm, watching things, tinkering with models, wandering desolate virtual worlds, staring at mirrors.
I do not believe that a crucial part of me will ever leave that Metaversal Hotel California. Nor is it a thing I can excise from myself entirely. Perhaps I am just weak-willed, or it is some consequence of post-modernity that I was meant to be doing something similarly adjacent to these digital nomadic wanderings. Perhaps I was truly meant to be traveling the world, visiting scuzzy parties and clubs, falling into wild and passionate but soul-crushingly brief romances. Being some avant-garde jack-of-all-trades creative. I've been referred to as a William S. Burroughs type and this writing as my "Naked Lunch" which, I can't really disagree with in concept, though I am a scatter-brained novice and not worthy to be compared to the actual great creatives of the past.
But sadly, here, halfway through the 3rd Decade of the 21st Century, I've come to realize, is no place for such men, many like this, are trapped in their cities or countries by crippling mental illness, oppressive Corpo-Government blockade structures, Balkanization of communities, destruction of wealth, and so on. There's no more Hemmingways, no Burroughs, no Neo-Lands, only those blessed by the fortune of wealth or blessed by Algorithms allowing them to afford their globe-trotting creative adventures. whether they are worthy or not.
Here I am, well over half a decade into this strange journey. A fundamentally changed man. In some strange baseline Melancholic-Zen mode, click-clacking at a keyboard in the dark, spouting schizobabble to any who come across this on the desolate wired at large. The Religious Man has slipped back in to co-pilot this damaged vessel. All I can say is this really - just chill out and LIVE. Create, love, whatever you can, just don't let the **ROT** take you. Hold onto the friends you have, your little digital islands, fight the current of post-modernity. Just, try your best, I know it is hard, but in the words of a famous film bro:
And to all others who may be trapped in the Metaversal Hotel California as well, you have my deepest sympathies, I hope you fair better than I on that plane of the Wired.
