Why blocking abusive people in social VR does not make you a weak person
Like most normal people, I often relive past arguments in the shower. I’m constantly envisioning myself coming out winning with clever comebacks and wit.
Many times these shower debates come from one of the most difficult things about being a marketing person working in tech, and that is, everyone thinks they’re a marketing person. I’ve had some of the most brilliant engineers, designers, founders and everyone else in between propose some of the dumbest ideas from a marketing standpoint. People think marketing is easy. Good marketers make marketing look easy and that’s what everyone sees but they don’t realize how much thought, effort, and empathy needs to be done behind the scenes for good marketing to happen.
I once shared a story with a person about something I witnessed in VRchat. A VRchat dancer was being verbally abused by a group of strangers and that person decided to block them all. The strangers kept throwing abuse at this person but after a while they got tired of being ignored and moved on. I used this story as an example of why VR can be such an empowering place. But the person whom I shared the story with thought the opposite. They thought VR was actually creating weak people, that would grow accustomed to running away from their problems. I think it’s tempting to make that assumption especially when this person does not spend time in social VR at all and did not care to see things from a marketing perspective and with genuine empathy. For people who don’t frequent social VR, its tempting to have these misconceptions and assumptions about these types of interactions inside the metaverse.
Virtual reality has many purposes but one of the most important is to provide an escape. An escape to a place where you have complete control. If you are running a social VR business it’s important that your community isn’t infested with toxic people without any way to fend them off. Ultimately no one will come to your app and you will fail or you’ll end up with something extremely niche at best.
Don’t feed the trolls
If someone taller and bigger came up to you on the street and in an unfriendly tone, the first thing they said to you was : ” Your bald head looks fucking disgusting.” or ” You’re a fat piece of shit.” What would you do? Are you going to fight that person? Would that be in the best interest of your wife and kids? Are you going to sit down with that person to change their mind, perhaps buy them coffee? Are you going to call the cops on them? Or maybe you have a clever comeback you’ve rehearsed in the shower and make fun of their shoes but do you risk a physical confrontation with someone bigger than you? I would argue that most reasonable people would try to simply ignore this asshole and remove themselves from the situation.
Let’s go a bit further than that, it’s pretty sensible to think that no reasonable human being would want to become friends with someone that is outright abusive and most people would simply try to walk away. Their attitude is their problem not yours, their agenda is not a positive one, so why spend more time with this person than you have to? You have a busy life to take care of and you have don’t have time for this kind of shit. Stepping away from abuse in this hypothetical real world situation is not weakness. Given the circumstances, stepping away is empowering. You are exercising your right to not be surrounded by assholes.
There are 7.5 billion people on this planet and your time in this plane of existence is limited so why spend your most valuable resource with people that make you feel bad? In that same vein, blocking strangers who are being abusive to you in VRchat or any social VR platform for that matter is not weakness, it’s common sense, it’s taking control over your experience. By walking away from toxicity we are simply filtering for the people that make our lives more fulfilling. By blocking or muting these people we are taking control over our lives. When people feel like they have more control of the social experience surrounding them, they’ll feel less stressed and it will keep them coming back.
Taking control is not a weakness
What’s really empowering and beautiful about the metaverse. Is that social VR spaces have many tools as well as community managers and moderation teams whose sole purpose is to weed out toxic people. I’ve done this for a living and I know the importance of making people feel safe to express themselves openly without hurting others. It’s a delicate balance because you also want to allow for plenty of free expression but free expression is always messy because we humans are a messy species and that’s okay, it’s makes the job fun.
Real world cops have crimes of violence and life or death situations to deal with, good luck reporting every crazy methhead that throws a random insult at you while you walk down Market street in San Francisco. If someone is threatening you with violence or stalking you then we have another story. So use your best judgement, but most people in SF are pretty used to mentally unstable people throwing random insults while you mind your own business and go about your daily life.
In the metaverse banning abuse is exactly what the community management team is for and this gives you the added of option of reporting abuse. Not only can you block the abusive person but you can also report them and ultimately get them banned. Sure, the troll will create another account but if enough people report or block the troll, the abuse becomes less fun because the level of effort will be too high. People should be allowed to say whatever they want, we live in a free society after all, but no one is obligated to listen to you.
No one should be subjugated to abuse just because some developer thinks blocking abuse in social VR makes weak people, that’s no way to create a positive community with mass appeal.
In the real world you might be in situations where you are surrounded by assholes but you can’t leave. Most of us know what that feels like. It doesn’t feel good and although some of us are better than others at dealing with it. Most people would not want to be surrounded by people who make them feel bad for the rest of their lives.
I want to make it clear, that abuse is not the same thing as someone respectfully disagreeing with you on a political/ philosophical/ ideological issue. You have every right to walk away from that conversation but ultimately it’s a good idea to hear other viewpoints from people with proper arguments when you can. Good conversations provide us the vehicle to teach and be educated by others.
We have more goals in common than we have differences and although it might not seem that way it’s probably because the tools that divide and conquer us have never been this powerful and this ubiquitous. Just remember, that while we squabble over bullshit, there is small group of powerful people benefiting from our division.
In real life if someone close to you abuses you, it can be difficult to walk away, maybe this person is a spouse or a family member, a co-worker or boss. Needless to say, if you find yourself trapped in this situation, I hope you are one day able to remove yourself completely but in the meantime it’s important for your mind to escape the rut. Some people use physical exercise, others find a hobby or reach out to their friends and for a lucky few, they have the metaverse. Whatever your escape, it’s okay to give your mind a break from abuse. It’s okay to block people who abuse you in social VR, because taking control does not make you a weak person.
