On March 31, 1999, the first part of The Matrix was released, and Morpheus, the leader of the hacking order, said the classic line "Welcome to the real world" after guiding the protagonist to the truth of mechanical society, "all mankind is indulging in the virtual world through brain chips.". In an era when broadband was not yet widespread and smartphones were still in their infancy, the protagonist attacked the beautiful illusion created by the mechanical society and defended the dilapidated but real "real world".
22 years back, on December 1, 2021, the virtual anchor Kizuna AI issued a "major notice". With its iconic white background and joyful tone, the virtual anchor, who does not reveal a "man in the middle" who provides specific sounds and movements, but is based on 3D modeling, motion capture and other technologies, announced the decision to "stop the activity indefinitely" after three months. In the video, Trip Love said "After all, now you see that I am no longer special", which makes many fans "break the defense", but also lament the development of the virtual anchor industry from scratch and now.
From "Welcome to the Real World" to "No Longer Special", more than 20 years later, the boundary between the real and the virtual has never seemed to be as blurred as it is today, and even the relationship between the two is about to face a new definition.
Virtual life is accelerating to become more important than real life
Kryptonian star chaser, online CP and virtual idols
In June, a mother documented her and her daughter's emotional exchanges through games in Animal Forest Friends, and the little story goes like this:
Weibo @ City of Lyon
This Weibo has been retweeted 32,000 times, with nearly 7,000 comments, which has warmed up many netizens and made people feel the new possibilities of the game that was regarded as one of the culprits of the atomic survival of contemporary people in the past.
This scene is easily reminiscent of the "metacosm" that has been discussed as acidic eyes, the gap between people and people has become very serious, urban youth feel the loss of "proximity", it is likely that the solution is not to cut off the Internet, but to hope that a stronger Internet to make up.
In the early 21st century, "surfing the Internet" was still like "attending a class", a verb with clear boundaries in time and space. In the 2010s, when smartphones were becoming more popular and social networks were emerging, netizens were able to access the virtual world anytime, anywhere. However, at that time, the Internet was still in a subordinate and supplementary position relative to "reality", through the unique convenience and anonymity of the Internet, to meet people's various needs in life, and gradually replaced the traditional way to meet these needs. For example, the Internet makes online shopping more convenient than physical shopping, and online social networking can cross spatial boundaries more than real social networking.
If the previous trend can be summarized as "network life", then when we set the clock to 2021, a clear trend is that our lives are becoming more and more networked. This means that the Internet has become not only a supplementary means for us to meet certain needs, but has reconstructed our spiritual and even material lives according to our own logic.
The most intuitive example is star chasing. In the age of records, posters and television, although the enthusiasm of star chasers is no less than that of the present, none of them seem to occupy an absolute dominant position among the many ways of chasing stars. And in 2021, it's hard to imagine what an entertainment industry without the internet, or rather, without social platforms would look like.
Weibo not only exists outside of television and magazines as a more convenient channel for disseminating and obtaining information, but also becomes part of the personality of celebrity idols. The content that is posted, forwarded, and liked is defaulted to representing the personality, discourse and even inner world of the star. For example, the interaction between two celebrity accounts is tacitly interpreted as representing the closeness of the personal relationship between the two people; whether it is forwarded to the official media on major historical anniversaries, and whether it is regarded as a sign of whether the star is patriotic or not.
In addition, the fans' star-chasing activities are largely around the social platform. More and more people have hardly consumed idol performances or peripherals in reality, but just by "snorting and dying" on social platforms, it is enough to build their own fan identity. With the development of the virtual idol industry, even the physical body necessary to be an idol is no longer necessary. In this way, virtual space began to slowly replace reality, and launched an impact on the centrality of the modern idol industry.
The same is true in the economic spheres that appear to be more "serious". Since February this year, cryptocurrencies have ushered in a bull market, not only the price of mainstream cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum has soared, but also some currencies that were originally out of spoof and satire have also risen along the way. For a time, Shiba Inu Coins, Dog Coins, Fox Coins, Pig Coins, Ant Coins, Rabbit Coins, and even Pikachu Coins appeared in an endless stream.
With the advent of the bear market in late May, these currencies have invariably plummeted. How many people have achieved financial freedom during the ebb and flow is unknown, but what is certain is that in 2021, "cryptocurrency" has become an economic activity that cannot be ignored.
There is a term "singularity" in the field of artificial intelligence, which refers to the moment when artificial intelligence is smarter than humans. With this concept, we can see that another "singularity" in the field of life, that is, our image, entertainment, property, emotions in the virtual world, is accelerating to a more important moment than in the real world.
Why we can't get rid of "living according to the Internet"
Under uncertainty, a large number of young people are fleeing to a safe virtual world
When analyzing the reasons for the acceleration of this "singularity", the impact of the new crown epidemic cannot be ignored. If the epidemic prevention system in 2020 is still the product of stress and emergency, then what we see in 2021 is that the operating mechanism of the entire society has been reorganized according to the logic of epidemic prevention, and it is barely running smoothly in the bumps.
The promotion of "non-essential, non-xx" words and health codes, although not as strong as the fully mandatory lockdown, has been more successful in rooting the logic of epidemic prevention in daily life, making communication and migration, the two cornerstones of social life, from default options to exceptional options that require specific qualifications and conditions. Under this system, our innate desire for migration and communication as social animals is suppressed, and we have to flee to the digital space.
The deeper implications are at the level of consciousness: culturally redefining the respective qualities of the real and the virtual. Previously, "truth" was seen as a definitive, rich, and secure field in which exploration could bring us all kinds of material and emotional rewards, and there were mechanisms to keep us safe. Cyberspace, by contrast, is often portrayed as volatile, risky, and online content, while seemingly colorful, cannot bring us anything other than false pleasure.
As a popular meme in the spring of 2021 put it: "Everything on the Internet is virtual, you can't grasp it." "With the advent of the epidemic, the relationship between the two has been completely reversed." The real world has become a turbulent, dangerous jungle where almost everyone is seen as a threat to everyone, and communication and migration in this reality has changed from default to exceptional options; virtual spaces are not at risk of being contaminated by viruses, and mass gatherings are no longer frightening.
However, no matter how great the impact of the epidemic is, it is only a short-term factor, and the arrival of the "singularity" of the virtual and real balance tilt is farther away than we think. As early as 1922, when the world was still between the era of print media and the era of broadcasting, the American scholar Lippmann noticed that mass communication was forming a "mimetic environment" independent of the real world, which replaced people's cognition of the real objective environment and guided people's specific actions in society.
100 years ago, Lippmann believed that people's dependence on the mimetic environment is innate, because people's limited cognitive ability cannot fully and directly grasp the "too large, too complex, too fleeting" real environment, so they have to rely on a cognitive framework that is sufficient by prejudice, imagination and simplification of information.
At present, although the richness and activity of the virtual world is no less than that of the real physical environment, we still rely on the virtual world. Unlike Lippmann's vision, this is not a stupid or irrational act, but a heartfelt pursuit of good things.
Why in 2021, Internet people are emphasizing "real"
A related phenomenon will be very obvious in 2021: people have a special respect for the "real" on the Internet.
Almost simultaneously embracing the virtual space, our desire for "authenticity" is awakened in another way.
For example, on short video platforms that have always been the main selling point of lifestyle, more and more people are beginning to find it difficult to stand the quiet years created by the layers of filters. Although bloggers from the platform itself to the brand side to the content producer are frank, in their own priority sequence, the importance of "authenticity" is far less than "refinement". Even for many ordinary users, it is not without psychological preparation for this sense of refinement based entirely on planning and technology.
However, when someone compares the "refinement" in the filter with the "real" under the filter, it still resonates with many people and ridicules the former.
Many observers see this attitude as the result of a monolithic paternal aesthetic, but the truth may be more complex: when we enter virtual space at an unprecedented rate, the senses and consciousness we form in the real world do not seem to be fully satisfied, but in a way that is uncomfortable to send out an early warning signal: "That is false, not real, false is not good, really good." ”
From this point of view, people do not reject the "beautiful virtual world", but the "virtual world that is too beautiful to make it difficult for people to feel substitution".
So, on the one hand, we enter the virtual world with unprecedented speed and degree, but on the other hand, we want to see "real" in the virtual world: the game is virtual, but we are eager to get a real experience in it; the idols are virtual, but we want their appearance to be "more realistic" and "a little more like a real person"...
The real future may not lie in who wins over whom and who dominates, rather, between the real and the virtual, but in building a new way of life based on equal treatment of the two.