When word circulated that an online adult service called Red Light Center (NSFW) had expanded beyond virtual sex, and was now offering patrons the option of enhancing their evenings with virtual drinks and virtual drugs, it seemed too dumb to be true.
But then, the truth has always been able to surprise me with the depths of its dumbness. Sure enough, there was Red Light Center's chief executive officer, Brian Shuster, giving a long-winded interview on the joys of virtual intoxicants to MIT's Technology Review. Shuster was explaining, at length, how virtual drugs would help alleviate peer pressure to try the real things.
"By separating the social pressure from the real-world application, users have a totally revolutionary mechanism to deal with peer pressure, and actually to give in to peer pressure, without the negative consequences," he said, sounding very much like someone hoping not to hear from the Drug Enforcement Administration.
"Moreover," he continued, "users of virtual drugs have reported the effects of these virtual drugs to be surprisingly realistic and lifelike."
Now, this sounded tantalizing. Some things are easier to convey in virtual terms than others. For instance, Red Light Center's core offering, the ability to watch little doll-like avatars have sex with each other, isn't especially novel. You would be amazed at what little figurines can be made to do in this day and age, but in the end, real-life partakers are still left staring at their screens while their avatars bop gingerly about. It's not virtual sex so much as DIY smut.
But virtual drugs would be a whole new ballgame. The only thing to do - anything for research! - was sign on and try some for myself. Signing up for Red Light Center, I discovered, is free. The catch is that, unless you pay for a "VIP" subscription, your poor avatar can't take its clothes off, which sort of defeats the purpose.
Lucky for me, then, that as soon as the game plopped me into a "Welcome" room filled with screeching club music and a procession of new players with identical starter bodies, I spotted just the opening I needed: a virtual bar. Better still, a virtual hookah sat over in the corner, looking generically druggy. Sitting down at a table, a mug of beer appeared in my hand, and a blue button popped up at the bottom of the screen. It read, "Drink."
And so I began my brief but illustrious career as a virtual drunk. Every time I pressed "Drink," the beefy little figurine they'd supplied me with would raise the mug to his smiling face. I sat there, alone, and clicked expectantly.
Alas, the results were disappointing. For instance, after two virtual beers, all the other avatars in the room did not become noticeably more attractive. Nor, after four virtual beers, did I suddenly find myself more articulate and quick-witted than ever before, regardless of whether this opinion was shared by anyone else.
After five drinks, nobody was inexplicably offended by something innocuous I had said about their profession. And, after staggering over to the virtual hookah and inhaling deeply, my screen did not immediately go black for the next eight to 12 hours. So much for virtual reality.
Here is what actually happened: After a handful of swigs, the Red Light Center screen started warping horizontally and vertically, providing a stomach-turning vertiginous effect. My little figurine started lurching and staggering, and frankly, it was a little embarrassing.
In other words, the software gave me a grindingly G-rated and literal interpretation of the effects of intoxication that managed to skip the good parts and go straight to the nausea. There was a button labelled "Sober up," and it wasn't long before I clicked it. Things were immediately much better, and that might have been the most counterintuitive part of all.
Really, it's a wonder that anybody still uses the word "virtual" at all when marketing products, since it's become a reliable indicator that whatever they're selling isn't very good. We've been sold virtual workplaces, virtual meetings, virtual pets stuck starving in plastic Tamagotchi cases, and virtual friends that you don't really know and don't really like but are there on your Facebook page anyway.
And each virtual idea winds up playing out like a bad movie made from a classic book: The filmmakers kept the name and a few shreds of the plot, but altered the rest so as to completely miss the point of the original. The word "virtual" used to cast a futuristic shine on whatever it touched. Now, it seems about as much fun as zero-per-cent-alcohol beer.
To work, an idea like this needs a fresh approach. There's a market, I think, for virtual intoxication, but not one that's wrapped up in such slavish, corporate-friendly terms. So let me propose an alternative form of virtual drinking, one in which the more you drink, the more your avatar gains a mind of its own.
What if, after a few beers, your little figurine started mumbling things to other avatars that you, the user, didn't type? What if your virtual self became susceptible to the suggestions of other users? What if it did embarrassing things that you had utterly no control over, raising the spectre of virtual humiliation? After all, the hint of risk, the glimmer of letting go, is always the joy of intoxication. It could be a lot of fun, at least until your avatar starts putting charges on your Visa for services you didn't request. And even that could be good for business. Think it over, virtual bartenders. This one's on me.
*****
Quick clicks
Chow down on the farm
Suicide Food (suicidefood.blogspot.com) is a celebration of advertising that features "animals that act as though they wish to be consumed." You know the kind. I once frequented a greasy spoon that had painted three of four inside walls as a gigantic farm scene, in which grinning chickens and pigs were dancing a hoedown and making like they didn't hear me order the bacon and eggs. Now, similarly distressing pieces of promotion have a blog to call their own. Bon appétit.
Font lines in the design war
Ban Comic Sans (bancomicsans.com) is busy rallying the troops against the scourge of the typographic universe, the Comic Sans font, a garishly ugly font that has a way of making designers see red. Abuses of Comic Sans, the campaigners say, "threaten to erode the very foundations upon which centuries of typographic history are built." They also advise that you buy one of their T-shirts.
- Ivor Tossell
