A few Saturdays ago I went to a night club. I dressed a bit casually, I put on a multi-colored sweater, jeans and tennis shoes. When I arrived, it was night and the sky was purple, dotted with stars and wisps of cloud. I heard blaring music before I walked in and there was no line out the door. It seemed pretty standard and oddly reminiscent of carefree pre-Covid times, but I wasn’t clubbing in the real world – I was clubbing in the metaverse.
The nightlife industry is expanding into the metaverse, with clubs, music festivals and parties popping up on various virtual platforms. More venues, companies and organizers are exploring this trend, which is partly a fad fueled by COVID, but also part of a broader move towards digital platforms that the nightlife industry has been facing since before the pandemic.
My first stop was Decentraland, one of the largest and busiest virtual spaces in the metaverse. If I was going to find fun, it would almost certainly be here. But getting in wasn’t that easy. After logging in, my browser screen would go black and unresponsive and the site would take a long time to load. I changed the browser several times with no effect and then restarted the computer. Despite what people say about the egalitarianism of these online spaces, if someone with a relatively new MacBook Pro couldn’t log in, Decentraland, at least, seems to cater to people with advanced computers and technology – not someone who’s idly wandering around, hoping to look around .
Clara McMichael
Once inside, my first stop was Amnesia Ibiza, a metaversal iteration of the club in Spain. According to Google, the club was temporarily closed, but in the metaverse it was still open, although there were no events or performances when I stopped by. When I entered, there was hardly anyone. In the middle of the dance floor stood an avatar named “Anonymous” in a black long-sleeved shirt. When I tried to talk to him, he immediately left. Videos on the walls showed a crowd of people in a real-world club. I was thrilled, but I realized that in the metaverse, socializing is triggered by scheduled events. It’s not like a club in the city where you can go every weekend and see a crowd and a lively dance floor.
Brave new world
Nightlife is experimenting with the metaverse for several reasons. Its foray into digital platforms has been boosted by the pandemic, said Mirik Milan, former night mayor of Amsterdam and co-founder of VibeLab, a nightlife consulting agency. Still, even before the COVID-19 pandemic there was interest, particularly through musicians who wanted to reclaim ownership of their work through NFTs and use the blockchain to sell directly to listeners, bypassing corporate record labels.
When the pandemic began, artists and venues under lockdown began to look for other ways to interact with fans and make money. Artists have started streaming live on platforms like Twitch, hosting virtual parties and crowdfunding to stay afloat. Travis Scott held a concert inside a video game Fortnite. VibeLab created United We Stream, a live streaming platform to raise funds and create streaming opportunities for artists in 115 cities worldwide.
Expansion into the metaverse is the latest wave of this research. Amnesia launched its club in Decentraland in June 2021. Bootsy Bellows, a club in West Hollywood owned by David Arquette, is entering the metaverse on the Solana blockchain and experimenting with a hybrid virtual and physical space, where guests use NFTs to get into the real world club.
“There’s definitely a lot of appetite to use the metaverse or digital technologies to discover and promote new talent,” Milan said.
Finding the focal point
After my less-than-stellar introduction to the metaverse at Amnesia, I wanted to find a place with more going on, and much to my surprise, it wasn’t easy. I stopped at a casino with Pepe the Frog avatars walking around, an empty jazz club, and another eerily empty club with an NFT art gallery. So far my mission has been unsuccessful. Going in, I thought Decentraland would be a vibrant, weird, exciting space with lots of activity, but it was mostly dead.
Clara McMichael
Fortunately, that changed when I stumbled upon an event called “Mr. Dhinga Launch Party” — the opening of a club where creators shared wearables. This was finally what I was looking for: the denizens of the metaverse came to this party in full force, enjoying all the weird and wonderful ways you’d expect to see at a virtual party. I went to the roof, where a crowd of avatars danced around a glowing orb. I joined in and started doing some dance moves (my avatar’s repertoire consisted of tapping and smelly feet) next to a wolf in sweatpants.
After exhausting my rather limited collection of dance moves, I joined the Twitch stream of a fellow traveler named Jacob Acebedo. His stream completed the event and provided participants with a place for easier mutual communication. I found them goofy and nerdy, but also warm and welcoming. They talked about how the event was better than a real party and scrolled through each other’s Instagram complementing each other’s photos. A partygoer gave me some wearables and I returned to the event, ready to continue dancing with a new yellow tracksuit and a lollipop.
Clara McMichael
A few days later, I spoke with Acebedo here in the real world. Outside of the metaverse, Acebedo is a 26-year-old military veteran and graphic design student from Southern California.
“I have a little anxiety myself,” he said. “I don’t really know where it comes from — apparently it comes from the military… In real situations when I’m in the company of a large group of people, my anxiety flares up. So when I’m in the metaverse, it gives me the opportunity to be around hundreds, if not thousands of people at once and not feel that overwhelming feeling that I would normally feel in real life.”
But many newcomers to the metaverse will have to face the technological hurdles that I did before I felt completely at ease.
“For the people [who] spend a lot of time online and play online games, it would be much easier to have this transition into the metaverse,” Milan said. “I’m not a gamer myself, so it will take me a little more time.”
All dressed up, but they have nowhere to go
A few days later, I dove back into the metaverse and attended another event. This one was called Le Phoque Off: An Alternative Music Festival that, due to Quebec’s COVID-19 restrictions, took place in the NOWHERE metaverse. Instead of avatars, in NOWHERE, people existed as non-agonal groups with live video chats that showed a person’s face. This was awkward in its own way (I’m reluctant to even answer a Zoom call), but it felt more authentic than the ugly Decentraland avatars and was closer to the real-life experience. There was even surround sound, so the closer you got to someone, the louder it sounded.
Once inside, I wandered over to the Sirius XM stage, where psychedelic rock band Hippie Hourrah was playing, surrounded by the Martian landscape. Concertgoers showed their enthusiasm by spinning, dropping or dropping their hearts. Unlike the Decentraland metaverse, which seemed like an exclusive club for die-hard crypto enthusiasts, I felt more comfortable in NOWHERE. It was fun listening to the music and I liked watching other people watching the show from their stands and interacting with each other. It was much more accessible and I could see the artistic potential of the space.
Clara McMichael
Before heading to the festival, I sat down with NOWHERE’S CEO, Jon Morris, for an interview in the metaverse. He did not create ANYWHERE after his work was interrupted at the beginning of the pandemic. This metaverse, he said, was different because it allowed for more interaction than just watching a live stream.
“You’re in this room with 100 people and you can hear them responding,” he said. “You can see them throwing heart emojis or jumping and spinning and having that reciprocity, which is really cool.”
Morris, who now lives in Brooklyn, grew up in rural Kentucky with little access to such cultural experiences. He says it could make a difference for children growing up in these environments today.
“That’s the whole reason we built NOWHERE,” he said. “All my life I have created experiences that deepen and excite human connection.”
Tidying up cyber space
Within my research, there were two distinct manifestations of nightlife in the metaverse. One served people interested in being pioneers in this space, who wanted to socialize, discuss and learn more about their common interests, which mostly revolve around cryptocurrency, NFTs and the evolution of the metaverse. The second was a creative venture for artists that allows them to reach a diverse audience and continue to perform and make money in uncertain times. Both environments fit the needs of our time, with COVID-19 limiting face-to-face interaction and the ubiquity of people creating their lives online.
People who work in this space agree that the metaverse is in its early stages, with many technological and social difficulties to be solved. And while the metaverse offers new and exciting ways to collaborate, share creative work, and explore new worlds, the physical nightlife industry won’t be replaced by its virtual counterpart anytime soon.
“He shouldn’t be seen as a replacement,” Milan said. “If you expect the same experience as going to a club, it’s never going to happen.”
Then again, that’s not really the point.
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Categories: GAMING
Source: newstars.edu.vn