VR, feet, and the power of empathy
Dispatches from a VR creator
There’s an “aha” moment when people put on a VR headset for the first time. I call it the “I have no feet moment.” They put on the headset, start turning their head side to side, a grin emerges on their face, and then they look down.
Oh shit. I have no feet.
That’s when it clicks. VR is no longer like having a TV screen on every wall of the room. There is no room. There is no screen. Only a new world.
Thanks to Metta, I recently had the chance to play with a 360 degree camera for the first time. As a writer and photographer, I’ve often understood the role of the artist as that of a cropper. If we could take a picture of the whole world, we would. But we can’t, so the artist must choose the frame.
However, when it comes to VR, things work a little differently. No longer is a composition bound by a rigid casing. The artist isn’t choosing the frame — they are choosing the world.
For years I’ve tried to use adjectives to paint pictures. Maybe if I get the verb just right, the reader might know what it is to live in the protagonist’s shoes for an instant. But when I held a 360 degree camera in my hand for the first time, I suddenly had the power to place the viewers feet wherever I wanted.
For someone who wants to use content to build empathy, the immersive canvas of VR is a playground. The first step in creating emotionally resonant narratives is simply exposure. We cannot feel deeply for something with which we have not come in contact. With the fragmented attention of our notification-driven world, committing our attention towards a single piece of content is increasingly rare. In VR, there are no competing browser tabs. The creator has the luxury of a the viewer’s undivided attention.
Second, a VR creator has the ability to tap into the urgency of a live moment. Whereas a filmmaker or author must create the context of a snapshot with selective, representational details, the VR creator can simultaneously offer the viewer a buffet of context as well as beautiful, fleeting interactions. VR makes “you kinda had to be there” moments more accessible.
Lastly, VR has the power to turn thoughts into action. A quick story. In 1850, Auguste and Louis Lumièrec created the first unintended horror film. The filmmaking brothers shot a 50-second short at a Provence railway station. According to legend, as the train chugged toward the screen, the audience believed it was about to crash out of the frame, and ran out of the auditorium screaming.
In the media world, most stories connect to readers at an sympathetic level. As I hunt for headlines and scroll through my feeds, I’m looking for stories and characters that make me feel something. To laugh. To cry. To gasp. But, I still am often feeling for someone else’s situation. When VR transports me into a world, the narrative no longer belongs to a foreign character. I am part of the story. I share the emotion, and will more likely run out screaming. VR builds empathy.
Why did all my friends change their profile picture after the attacks in Paris, but not after analogous attacks in Beirut or Egypt? It comes down empathy. When an audience relates to a character’s circumstance as if it were their own, they are much more likely to take action. I believe in VR’s ability to make people do something. By exposing viewers to foreign worlds, we can cultivate more global citizens and use storytelling as an agent for change.
I can’t wait for this movement to find its feet.
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Simone is one of the first 360/VR creators on Metta: the virtual reality video platform dedicated to user-generated content. Sign up here to hear updates about when Metta is launching or here if you’re a 360 creator and want to upload your content to the beta version of the platform.
