Virtual Reality
...thoughts on the injuries we suffer and the goggles we wear.
A few weeks back I found myself sitting in the customer waiting area at a local car repair place that’s part of a national chain. A tire had gone flat in the driveway after a recent repair. Since I figured it was going to be a relatively quick fix, I opted to wait.
The television in the waiting area was playing videos of “fails,” one after another. People getting sprayed in the face with soda pop, plenty of mishaps related to bicycling, swimming, boating, and backyard games, minor kitchen disasters, and lots of people falling down for one reason or another. Men, women, children — everybody’s moment of pain, embarrassment or loss is fair game, and apparently deemed to be suitable raw material for a chuckle or at least a smirk. The first few minutes I was like, “huh.” It went on and on, though. Every few minutes the network logo appeared on the screen. Yes, there’s a channel devoted entirely to this particular video genre.
The individual video clips — and it seems all of them were less than ten seconds in length and recorded by amateur videographers — were arranged in thematic montages: beach and boating mishaps, for example.
Turning away from the screen for a moment, I was reassured to see through the window into the shop that my car was up on the hoist.
How many of the incidents shown may have led to actual ER visits is an open question. Certainly some of the bicycle and rollerblade wipeouts seemed likely to require medical followup. But the channel’s viewers don’t see that part.
So I just did some math: Assuming a generous eight seconds per video clip, this suggests that over the course of a 30-minute viewing interval, a viewer of this channel would witness about 225 incidents of painful loss, injury, or embarrassment.
Now granted, slapstick has been a comedy mainstay for a long time. Consider the early silent movie actors like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Later when sound was added to movies, audiences were treated to images of The Three Stooges hitting one another over the heads with wrenches, each blow accompanied by a satisfyingly resonant metallic <clang!>. So I guess in a way, what I saw on the screen with my car in the shop could be likened to an episode of The Three Million Stooges. Minus the plot, but I guess who needs a plot when you need to get straight to the under-contextualized, pointless injury? And who has the time or patience to wait? Such is progress.
Now, the fact that such a video channel even exists is perplexing, but the question of why it was playing in a car repair waiting room is even stranger to contemplate. Was the decision made by the local shop owner / franchisee? Was it maybe just one of the mechanics in the shop with a twisted sense of humor? Then again, did someone in a corporate office somewhere make the call? I couldn’t tell you. The other place in town where I get my tires repaired usually has some broadcast television stream going, talk shows and news broken up at regular intervals by “ask your doctor about” ads for prescription drugs and “call so-and-so” ads for injury law specialists. That seems to be what it’s come down to these days. In contrast, what I’ll call “The Fail Channel” seemed to have no ads. This left me wondering how their people got paid. Is it a subscription-based thing? If so, like: Whoa?
Personally, I don’t have access to much regular television, so it’s interesting for me to check in on what passes for mainstream culture in the USA these days. And I must confess that it’s tempting to compare the mainstream news with this other channel and its endless series of face-plants, people being unseated from their bicycles, and birthday cakes decorating their intended recipients.
But what really shocked me was, just before I left I saw a video montage featuring people wearing virtual reality goggles and the awful things that can happen when they do. Within a span of maybe a minute or so, I saw, for example, a woman waving her arms around violently, maybe to block, grab or avert something she saw in her device, but instead hitting someone in the face who happened to be standing nearby — I’m guessing most likely a friend or family member. I saw more than one person attempting to run away from something they saw projected in their goggles and taking a spill over a coffee table or other unseen impediment. I also saw several videos of otherwise ordinary-looking people squirming, flailing and writhing in horror as though being attacked by invisible demons. Electronic psychosis, right before my eyes.
Then, thankfully, a reprieve from this terrible, mesmerizing scene arrived, breaking the spell:
“Mr. Scholz?” came a voice from my left. Startled, I turned away from the screen. Gathering my wits, I rose and approached the technician at the service desk.
“Found the problem,” he said. “Valve stem needed replacement. It’s covered by warranty, so there’s no charge. You’re good to go. Car’s outside.” He handed me the key.
“Oh! Thanks so much!” I said.
And as I thought about this on my way home and later, I realized to my shock that, without being aware of what was happening, I had been transfixed by the horror of watching images on a screen showing other people who were transfixed by the horror of whatever they were seeing on theirs.
That’s a little “meta,” so I will repeat it: without being aware of what was happening, I had been transfixed by the horror of watching images on a screen showing other people who were transfixed by the horror of whatever was happening on their screens.
If there’s a more apt metaphor for where we’re at as a society these days, I can’t think of one right now. Then again, show me a metaphor and I’ll show you a pair of goggles.
Thing is, the hazards of virtual reality are nothing new. What I saw on TV is a pretty good stand-in image of many of us, a lot of the time, and all of us at least part of the time. It’s so easy for example to unconsciously wear stereotyping goggles, have them on so long we don’t even know we’re wearing them, and then reflexively defend ourselves when a person of a particular gender, skin color, ethnicity or political stripe appears in our view. We read something online and then irritably snap at our spouse who just happens to be nearby. We routinely mistake representations for facts and then find ourselves tripping over realities. And when we do trip over the coffee table and get hurt, we might even blame the thing we’re seeing in our goggles rather than the coffee table. Stranger still, I’m guessing that if three people wearing the same kind of goggles were to trip over the same coffee table, they might even reach consensus on what has caused their injuries. And it probably will not be the coffee table.
Not sure how to get these goggles off. Not sure it’s even possible, or what that would mean. Might be worth a try, though. Or maybe I could use my current goggles to find a better pair of goggles to replace them with. Granted, through my current goggles, I can see that I might encounter some problems implementing that idea, but c’mon, what’s the worst that could happen? Another fail?