Watch: Why Creating Diverse Communities Make the Metaverse Matter (My Appearance on the Remote Daily Talk Show)

Courtesy the lovely people of Remote Daily, an online talk show that launched during the pandemic (with live music and everything), here's my recent appearance with award-winning VR creator Athena Demos, where we talk about creating community within XR platforms. My favorite passage is around 17:00 minutes in, where I explain my argument for why the Metaverse is enables us to create uniquely transformational communities: 

That's one thing I really wanted to focus on with the book, because after Mark Zuckerberg and others sort of glommed onto the term, they were kind of talking about it like it's a technology. And I was pulling my hair out [saying], No, there's a virtual world where communities can emerge, and they are only possible within an immersive virtual world space, because you have by definition millions of people from all over the world connecting in the same virtual space.

 

So you have a sense of "you are there" with other people. And because there's millions of people, you're gonna meet people from different generations, from different economic backgrounds, different races. And that's only possible, far as I can tell, within a virtual space where you have this sense of immersion. Because with social media, you're either connected with your friends or you're yelling at each other on Twitter, and so on.  

By the way (since Remote Daily's host mentions it, and it comes up fairly often), if you're wondering about my name:

"Wagner" is an old family name on my mom's side which my parents made my first name due to a family naming tradition on my dad's side (long story), "Au" is my dad's family name, "James" is my middle name (well actually my baptismal name but that's yet another long story). While I generally go by James, Wagner is totally fine too. Less fine: Calling me "Al" because someone misreads "Au" for the short version of Albert, or assuming Wagner is my last name, or assuming Au is some sort of title or the chemical symbol for gold (which it is) and ignoring it altogether. (All of which sometimes happens!)

All of which is to say "Hamlet" cuts through all that confusion and works great!

Comments

[Luther Weymann]

Your comments about being immersed in a virtual world where communities of diverse people come together from all over the world are only possible in this immersive virtual world. I wish more people in tech who are touting their Metaverse could see this. This viewpoint is essential.

[Wagner James Au]

Thank you, Luther!