The Debate Trilogy: Presidential Politics in VR
If I were going to place the debates among the all-time greatest cinematic threesomes, I couldn’t group it in the upper tier of the Cube or Kielowski’s Color trilogy. It would be at the caliber of Godfather or the Star Wars prequels insofar as they had their moments and in interesting backstory, but they go on for too long and victimize completists.
But this time around, I planned not to be alone. I made an appointment to meet with Trowsers, a buddy from the second debate in AltspaceVR, which would give me the opportunity to use some of the untapped features and answer a key question about this social VR platform: Given the ease with which you can meet strangers in AltspaceVR, how easy is it to meet with friends at an event?
Answer: It depends on the event.
The number of attendees to the final debate hovered around 150. This is about half the number coming to the first debate, but it shouldn’t be taken as a sign of failure since the number of viewers through all mediums was significantly reduced. That number of people in the same place (Democracy Plaza) would be unwieldy, so there were a number of parallel rooms with the same design and projection to accommodate the large crowd in attendance. When you beam into a room, you are automatically sent to one where there is space available and, obviously, there’s no way to enter a room already filled to capacity.
After beaming in and out of the incorrect room a few times, I decided to create my own event, LANCE’S DEBATE NIGHT: OTHER, where I would meet my friend and we could exchange thoughts about the debate. However, I inexplicably warped into a room where the second debate began playing — which was, perhaps, a blessing in disguise since the best part of a trilogy is often the second part (see original Star Wars, The Hunger Games, Godfather, etc). When I came back to the main event, I saw my friend and he’d sunk into the floor directly beneath the screen. He and I exchanged emoji greetings and we started to talk, but it soon became clear that this was like breaking into conversation during a film. Small comments are forgivable, but don’t start talking about your day and so forth. A woman politely informed us of this impropriety, so Trowsers and I agreed to speak again after the event.
No longer in the mood to watch the candidates’ giant heads, I turned on a livestream of the debate on Youtube and sought out user events in AltspaceVR to pass the time until the end of the debate. What I found was an Aztec inspired jungle maze in an Andean setting. Alone, I challenged myself to complete the maze before the end of the debate, about 40 minutes. I walked through long corridors, found dead ends, doubled back and found new branches as the prez-to-be argued vulgar language, Russian hackers and extremely late-term abortions. Throughout the maze, there were short wooden ladders so I might peak above the wall, gaining small hints as to the right direction. When I felt utterly lost, the occasional arrow would urge me onward. At the end, I reached the foot of an altar topped with golden statues — I tried to steal one Harrison Ford style but they slipped through my controls — so finally, I mounted the ziggurat and purveyed the Andean landscape minutes before the debate’s end.
Again on the ice rink, our gracious hosts Lisa (of Altspace VR) and Steve (of NBC) invited one Trump and one Clinton supporter to share their views. Last time, they couldn’t locate a Trump follower, but they had more luck this time around. In the form of a human avatar, the man congratulated Hillary for controlling her coughing — not exactly high praise, but it was something. Trowsers, I doubt he’ll mind me saying, was the Clinton supporter and remarked of Donald’s question dodging and finger pointing.
Shortly after the post-debate comments and a brief firework display, I invited Trowsers to the same jungle maze where we shared thoughts on the state of both the election and VR. Sadly, this talk was cut short when my microphone, metaphorically, crapped its pants. This was when we learned of the messenger feature in AltspaceVR, which is convenient for short and silent conversations, but not amenable to deep expression of thought. Anyway, better luck next time.
