Spiritual Satisfaction and Development Crisis: On the Literary Experience of the Virtual World

In the Modern Chinese Dictionary of New Words, the virtual world refers to the "unreal world made up of networks"1. Looking at the papers in various fields, no matter from what angle scholars define, the existence of the virtual world is closely related to the network, so the literature of the virtual world is the literature that was born and spread on the network - network literature. In this article, the literary experience of the virtual world refers to both the changes experienced by online literature itself and the reading experience it brings.

Looking at online literature from the perspective of the virtual world, it will be found that the online literature born from the virtual has constructed the virtual world with words. Although literature itself has fictional overtones, online literature has undoubtedly raised the fictional limits of literature to a new height, from crossing the air to playing monsters, in which virtual worlds emerge endlessly, allowing readers to obtain spiritual experiences that are different from everyday life, thus occupying a market that is superior to traditional literature. But does that mean it will go smoothly?

Hunting and coolness:

A common reading experience in the virtual literary world of the Internet

Fairy tales that humans have been obsessed with since childhood, especially works with happy endings. Although some children's literature was created to tell the truth of reality in a virtual way, the enlightenment of exotic fantasy has since begun. Similar to the logic of the love story of the children's love of the prince and princess, the reader's enthusiasm for online literature is not only related to the diligent exploration of a certain orientation in the heart, but also reflects the curiosity about the exploration of the exotic world.

On the virtual platform of the World Wide Web, many of the limitations of real society no longer exist, and online writers can fight against mainstream culture with more freewheeling brushstrokes. Based on history and reality, online literature has made different structures for the past, present and future worlds, but it also satisfies the two psychologies of curiosity and coolness: works with smooth plots and happy endings obviously fill the readers' unwillingness in real life, so that they can find beauty and regain hope in the world of differences; and those novels with flawed endings and even destructive foresight actually satisfy the pursuit of darkness in human hearts. In addition, some literary novels have completely established a virtual world that is detached from reality, reconstructing the order that guarantees the basic operation of society, including conventional heterogeneous novels such as xianxia and games, and also covering some science fiction literature that is completely beyond cognition, although their core is still difficult to get rid of the logic of reality. But this kind of virtual field similar to the "metacosm" can undoubtedly make human nature more fully liberated, and the reader breaks through the rules of reality in the midst of both truth and illusion. All in all, they are all based on breaking the existing order, triggering readers' curiosity about the exotic world, and creating a silky reading experience in a relatively single direction, filling the reader's shortcomings and unwillingness in reality, and the original purpose of its creation is also here.

The above network literature is embodied in the fiction of text content, and its generation depends on the subjective consciousness of the author, but there is another type of work that completely needs to rely on developed network technology and reader participation - hypertext novels. Hypertext novels are electronic texts composed of words, pictures, audio-visual fragments and multi-path structures, which have changed the previous generation and narrative logic of novels, and Joyce's "Afternoon, a Story" and Morslope's "Victor's Garden" are representatives of hypertext novels. The author uses the network to provide many hypertext link points in this part of the text, for the reader to choose arbitrarily in the process of reading, and each link points to a different plot and ending, and the selection process means the stimulation of curiosity. Readers can get adventurous experiences in reading, and if they are not satisfied with their choices, they can start all over again. This kind of hypertext novel enables the reader to participate in the process of text generation to the greatest extent, beyond the dimension of the previous infinite interpretation novel ("ten thousand readers have ten thousand Hamlets": the reader participates in the construction of the meaning of the text in the interpretation), and the subject can jump out of the hierarchy and bondage in the real world and get the satisfaction of compensating for shortcomings.

However, everything has two sides, and the experience behind curiosity and pleasure is the crisis of intellectual simplification. Through online literature, readers may only see the bright picture of society, and the dark and filthy moments behind it are obscured, they may daydream for a long time, and they may lose the will to try to live under the huge contrast between reality and virtuality. The invasion of pleasure will further deepen the reader's pursuit of stimulation, losing normal reading perception and independent thinking, not only unable to taste classic literary works, but also not conducive to the solution of daily problems. Finally, online literature that favors homogenization will invisibly obliterate the differences of readers and give them similar interests and orientations.

Evolve from experiential perspective

The two types of online virtual texts do enhance the connection between literature and readers, and find a reasonable way of existence by filling the reader's psychology, so the needs and preferences of readers are bound to affect the development direction of online literature. Some works seem to have formed a good interaction with readers and complement the real world, but this does not mean that online literature will occupy a place in literature and even people's lives for a long time. At present, most online works are consciously or unconsciously catering to the reader's sensory experience, which may have consequences that jeopardize their own development.

If online literature blindly caters to the needs of readers, it will ignore the actual situation and the logic of reality, lose the details that literary works should have, and follow the pleasure and curiosity to go straight to the illusion of building utopia. Online literature that can resonate with readers and enhance reading participation has lost its relevance to real life and cannot propose problems or solutions to reality. And this part of the literary works is bound to be popular by virtue of its "advantages", which will inevitably lead to the imitation of traditional literature and cause the mainstream of literature to lose the opportunity to progress under the reference of reality.

In addition, most of the online text presented in electronic form will invisibly speed up the reader's reading speed, so that they ignore the author's exquisite ideas in the text, blindly pursue "refreshing feelings", further leading to the loss of the meaning of the text. Online writers will naturally put less effort into this aspect, resulting in a decline in the quality of their work.

Under this sensory-oriented environment, online literary creation is easily replaced by entities with more distinct audiovisual effects, such as film and television dramas, games, etc., and writing will also evolve into superfluous products. Novels such as hypertext novels are likely to evolve into a type of game, and the boundaries between "products" of other interactive genres, such as literature and games, will be blurred.

Thinking further, the virtual structure of the current online literature is still based on reality, and plays a similar function to meeting the needs of the human spirit as traditional literature. At the same time, online literature is also recording the spiritual memory of an era, reflecting a certain spiritual quest of human beings. However, with the advancement of information technology, a "metacosm" that is beyond reality was born. The "metacosm" refers to the artificial virtual three-dimensional space, which is some kind of extension of Internet technology, and humans can enter this surreal realm and carry out related activities by wearing VR devices2. In this dimension, the literary experience of the virtual world can be defined as the perception of reading in the "metaverse", which transcends the usual perspective of reality and is an unimaginable alternative reading in a completely new world. When human beings enter the "metaverse" one day out of reality, online literature is not based on the virtual in reality, but on the virtual in the virtual. Under the dual virtual limitation, the "satisfaction" and "preservation" functions of online literature and even all types of literature may be replaced by other more intuitive and unimaginable ways today, losing their foothold.

In reality, the existence of online literature is still risky, and online literature in the virtual world is more likely to be shaken, and the process of development can be described as dangerous. But the catastrophe of self-devouring is not necessarily inevitable, and there is also a possibility of smooth and complete progress.

The reader's appreciation of the virtual world constructed by online literature is a natural selection, an escape from certain aspects of real society. Therefore, the development of online literature is difficult to rely on the change of reader orientation, but should start from the author's creation. The author cannot simply satisfy the virtual experience of the reader, but needs to highlight its distinctive value and significance, highlighting its superiority over other types of literature, such as a broader fantasy space. Second, authors should stick to the bottom line and put an end to the repetitive and unhelpful creation of novels that are completely centered on economic interests, and lose the basic responsibility of writers. Only in this way can online literature find a more reasonable meaning of existence, form a normal interactive relationship with society and readers, and explore infinite possibilities in a foreign world.

exegesis:

1 Liu Hairun and Kang Shiyong: Dictionary of New Words in Modern Chinese (Second Edition), Shanghai: Shanghai Dictionary Publishing House, 2016, p. 385.

2 Jiang Jianguo: Metacosm: Homogeneous Experience and Cultural Illusion, Yuejiang Academic Journal, 2022, No. 1, pp. 59-63.

(Author Affilications:College of Literature, Beijing Normal University)

WeChat Editor: Lv Yimeng

Second Instance: Cong Ziyu

Third trial: Ren Jingjing

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