If the internet had a voice, it’s easy to presume that it would be sarcastic, offensive, and grammatically incorrect.
While it’s true that the new age of digital communication has given rise to negative elements like trolls, it has also allowed for means of interaction unlike anything that exists in the analogue world.
Enter Vinesauce founder Vinny Lange, a gamer and content producer whose work is hosted on Youtube and streaming website Twitch.
In late March 2016, Vinny was exploring the abandoned landscape of Active Worlds, a Massively Multipayer Online (MMO) game launched in 1995. In Active Worlds, everything the player sees was created by the game’s once thriving community; a community that had since moved on to more involved, technologically superior MMOs.
Vinny’s journey – livestreamed to an audience of over 6000 fans – was a fascinating, almost haunting look at a digital world forgotten in time; mirroring what it must be like to set foot in an abandoned city like Chernobyl or China’s ghost towns.
What made the stream most notable, however, was the moment Vinny couldn’t find a way to progress to the next section of the map, only to have a message pop up on his screen: “Hello, traveller. Are you lost?”
Presuming the message originated from a Non-Playable Character (NPC) as he had blocked access to the server, Vinny tracked its source. What transpired can be seen below.
As it turns out, Hitomi Fujiko was not an NPC, but a 19 year-old aspiring artist from America. Playing that night for the first time in over a year (she’d signed in before Vinny, hence the confusion), she realised Vinny was streaming, and decided to have a bit of fun by roleplaying.
Though the theory that Hitomi was a sentient AI abandoned on the server was debunked, the story that had unfolded in front of Vinny’s viewers was still a significant one.
It’s an incredible example of the unique experiences that can exist in a realm outside of reality, and a look at how communication has evolved in the digital era.