Recently, I had the opportunity to read Ready Player One, which had the benefit of not only being extremely engrossing, but also jam-packed with 80's pop-culture goodness which I love soooo much. This isn't a book review though. This is a continuation of the in-class discussion we had about the issues of avatar identity, definitions of reality, and the phrase that Anorak/Halliday uses at the end of the book, "After all, reality is real".
In the book, that takes place mostly in a virtual environment called, OASIS, the main character Wade (through his avatar Parzival) goes on a quest. By the end of it, his avatar has a supreme administrator status (basically making him godlike within the confines of OASIS), he's rich beyond his wildest dreams, and he found a life-long friend and a girl who he loves. It's your standard happy ending, but there was a lot of discussion in class regarding virtual spaces as "real". By which we mean, are interactions that happen in a virtual environment considered a real interaction? I'd always be the first to argue that they are, of course. Whether I talk to someone in World of Warcraft or if I talk to them over the phone, I'd consider the interaction to be real. Very much in the sense that it was an exchange of information that happened.
The problem, however, is how real is that virtual space that those interactions take place in, and how does it compare to the "real life" space of, well, reality? This is something that I apparently don't see eye to eye on as the book is concerned.
To set up the scene in the book, reality (the world outside of OASIS, known hereafter as RL) has gone to shit. The fuel crisis came and went and left the world as we know it destroyed. Around that time, the OASIS was created. A fully-customizable "Second Life"-esque game that, by the time the book takes place, has supplanted RL as the main venue for daily life. People go to work, commute, and earn money in the OASIS. What started as a game became a hyper-real simulation, to the point that the in game currency is the world currency because it's the only thing that has a set value. (Despite the fact that it's still obtainable by killing mobs, which is a huge financial loophole in the book.) The creator of the game, Halliday left behind a message to whoever solved his riddle and that person happens to be Parzival. Halliday's avatar tells Parzival to not put too much importance on the OASIS and not experience life. Because, "After all, reality is real."
In class we discussed it, and the overall sentiment in class was, "How dare Halliday imply that all of what Wade/Parzival did and all the people he met not be real?! He made a best friend and love interest and those relationships are definitely real!" This upset me. Not because I don't think those relationships weren't real, but the reality of those relationships were skewed greatly.
Aech, Parzival's best friend, turns out to be a different gender, race, and sexual orientation than what was depicted in the game. Now, the relationship persists since they'd been best friends for years and that friendship still existed. But there was a moment of unveiling that is a telling point of how "real" that relationship was. Or rather, the moment that it stopped being one kind of real, and entered into a whole new level of reality, like waking up from a dream. Parzival falls in love with Art3mis who has been distant in their entire relationship because in RL, she has a large port-wine stain that covers half her face, and she's been bullied to the point of seclusion because of it. Wade is able to over come that since he fell in love with Art3mis, the girl behind the avatar. It's a touching story of falling in love with someone sight-unseen instead of basing it off of physical appearance.
But the OASIS is not real. By which I mean, the girlfriend-boyfriend relationship Parzival and Art3mis had wasn't a genuine one. The feelings were there, but Wade, at no point, had to deal with Art3mis when she was sick. At any point, Art3mis could pull away for days by simply logging off, and Wade could deal with it, because that's the reality of an online environment. When they break up, Wade is crushed, but in a virtual environment the break-up doesn't happen like it would in RL. Art3mis can block incoming messages from Wade. She can filter emails. Even if Parzival found her in the OASIS, she can block his speech from reaching her. This is a level of isolation that is impossible in RL without staying inside the house and never leaving. More importantly, the minutae of being in a long term relationship has never been put to the test. While, to be fair, this is portrayed as the first stage of a relationship. The falling in love part. But it's stated that they dated for months. So at the end of the book, Wade and Art3mis have had a long-term relation going for months. But it's by fighting through the worst parts of life, the mundane aspects that make life miserable on a day to day basis that really try a relationship. This is something that Wade has never experienced. Because the OASIS isn't real. Not like RL.
Alfred Hitchcock said that movies are life with the boring parts edited out. That's what any interaction inside the OASIS is. But those boring parts is what make life, life. Wade hasn't had to deal with Art3mis being sick, but having to take care of her. He's never had to rearrange his activities that day because she caught a stomach bug or is on her period or twisted her ankle. He's never had to deal with the fact that she's a physical body somewhere, and that is an (arguably) important part of any reality. We want to be accepted as an entire person, body AND mind. I like it when people like us more for the mind, but everyone gets a little thrill when they're deemed by someone else as being physically attractive. It's important for our egos and our well-being. This is something that is completely lacking in the OASIS interactions. Not that there isn't physical attraction, but even in the basic interactions between Parzival and Art3mis, there's that level of doubt that Art3mis looks anything like her real body. Whether or not Art3mis is just some guy in West Virginia who gets his kicks leading on teenage boys online is a real concern, regardless of how it's presented as a joke.
And that physicality is what makes RL, real. Wade hates his RL life. Why? Because he has to deal with it in order to access the OASIS and stay alive. The OASIS can affect RL, but it can't do several things. It can't feed you. It can't take care of your body. It can't deal with bodily wastes. It can't bathe you. Some of these can be achieved through buying special attachments to the harness you're using, but they're still things that at some point, you're going to have to log out and take care of at some point. Just because you are more engaged in a virtual space than in the RL space, doesn't mean that RL isn't less real than the virtual space you're looking at. And that's what Halliday was trying to get across. Reality is real. First and foremost. Other worlds are real in varying degrees. But at some point, those virtual realities have to end and you have to go home to RL. What you have in that world is reflected by the choices you've made in that world, and by a lesser extent what choices you've made elsewhere. But, people have been complacent to ignore RL for so long that the RL that their bodies inhabit is not a place they want to live. Far from making it better, they run from it. We measure maturity based on how we respond to uncomfortable situations. Running from any situation that is uncomfortable is considered in almost all cultures as childish, something to be shunned. But that's what persisting in staying in the OASIS is.
Now, this has gotten me in a bit of a bother, since as we discussed this topic in class, I felt very emotional. I remember feeling like Wade, wishing that the OASIS was a reality. Only my OASIS was any number of fantasies, either in my head or in video games.
When I was 7, I gained a phobia of team sports, and it led me down a path of self-doubt that made me dive deep into the world of video games to escape the feelings of disappointment I had in myself for letting others down. When I was 9, my parents divorced, and I dove even deeper to avoid dealing with the familial issues that arose around everything. As I got older, my self-perception became more and more skewed. I felt unworthy of life, and I kept diving into the worlds in video games to ignore these issues. I stopped growing as a person socially. And every time I had to not be playing a game, I'd hate who I saw in the mirror, because that was me. Not Link, not Master Chief, not Solid Snake. I was not courageous, or strong, or exceptional. I was boring, plain, disappointing me. And it became a vicious cycle. I kept up appearances in school. I did well because then no one would ask questions. But I was supremely unhappy. Like Wade, I liked a virtual environment because I could overcome any limitation through the equalizer of the internet.
Eventually, I came to understand what I was doing. So I stopped. I returned to reality and faced the pain of being who I really was. I still played games a lot, but I was no longer being more invested in them than I was in my actual life. The next few years were hard. I had to really stretch myself and grow. But I eventually came to accept who I was, what my life was, and accepting that certain fantasies should always stay fantasies. For me, that's what Halliday was saying. Not that what you do in the virtual reality isn't real, but that only by facing RL, would you be able to accept truths about yourself and become a real person. I'm glad to say that I can look at myself in the mirror and feel good about what I see. Not just physically, but mentally and socially. I still play games and interact with people in a virtual environment, because those interactions are real to varying degrees, but accepting that they affect a real body occupying real space was the last step that I didn't want to take. Because for so many years, I'd tried to run away from that real boy sitting on his bed playing games.
Reality is real. When the computer shuts off. When the kill scree appears. When the movie ends and the book closes, this is what's going to be left. And when that happens, wouldn't it be great if we'd made that reality worth experiencing?
