According to Urban Dictionary, tea-bagging is “continuously crouching on a dead body in a video game”, especially the face area.
People demanded to have personal boundaries in the metaverse. So Meta’s Horizon Worlds just implemented it. From now on, there is an almost 4-feet distance between your and other avatars. As much as I am interested in metaverse stuff, I am scared of how seriously people take it (especially people who have not played a single MMORPG). I get it that we are trying to make it immersive as possible, but some people identify a little too much with their avatars that they demand to have some personal boundaries. There is nothing wrong with asking for personal boundaries in the metaverse if this is how you feel, but I find it concerning that some people take it too seriously.
Horizon Worlds introducing personal boundaries
So I came across this on a Twitter post by HorizonWorlds, which is the open, social environment of Horizon by Meta. It is intended to offer a leisure time alternative. You can socialize, make friends, and meet strangers. It is one of the four Horizons other being horizon home for your home space in the metaverse, horizon workspace, which is for working and meetings; horizon marketplace, for buying and selling stuff.
Then I checked the comments section to see what people thought about personal boundary mandates on Horizon Worlds. It seems like there is a massive problem with the kids. Probably they are trolling everything and do not act in a “civil manner”. They see it as a game and just play along. Grown-ups are more likely to act like they would on a social platform like Twitter or Facebook. So they are more “reasonable” in their demeanors.
Arbitrariness of the 4-feet
The second request by the users is to make personal boundary/social distance mandate a toggle on-off feature, which is excellent. Because when we talk about the metaverse, developers and designers considerably influence how we experience our social relationships. Think of it for a second. We have a culture and way of doing things in real life, but in the metaverse, code is law—design choices made by developers and designer mandate how you will experience sociality in the metaverse. There are no deviations from it. So those who write the code can determine the appropriate physical boundary between users and many more things. Developers having this sort of influence on a platform where humans spend hours is so dystopic if you ask me, Especially if we have no role or say in the governance of these metaverses. I know this sounds like overkill, but the time we spend online has increased exponentially in the last decade. If the metaverse were to replace some of the platforms we currently use today, I would say this is very concerning. Just like the like button on social media websites or the addiction-making newsfeed. Also pretty much culture-dependent. I am not sure if I have any Scandinavian readers yet, but I bet it would have been a 6-feet personal boundary instead of 4-feet. Maybe some Mediterranean or Latin American programmer would opt for 2-feet. Or some other programmer from a country with more loose personal boundaries would not put this feature altogether. I gave this example to emphasize the arbitrariness of some of the design choices.
Being groped in the metaverse
This topic hit the news headlines on December 2021 when a woman reported being groped in Meta’s HorizonWorlds. Some called her that she was seeking attention. Some argued that it is not comparable to physical harassment and that this should not be a concern. Others say that it is no less than physical harassment. It was and still is such a controversial topic. My opinion on this is twofold. First, I am sorry about her. If someone feels insecure and has to abandon the metaverse if no such measures are taken, then it is good to implement these protective measures. But on the flip side, I find it absurd and scary how someone could immerse themselves so much in this thing that they could feel being groped, harassed, or raped. You can turn off the headset, take the thing off, and return to real life. You can walk away, block other users, mute audio, and change into another horizon world. I believe the metaverse should be a thing on its own and utterly distinct from real life. The ideal case, in my opinion, is just putting the headset on, enjoying yourself in the virtual world, and taking the thing off when you stop enjoying it or when the real-life calls. That’s the beauty of it. Real life comes with its hardships and challenges, but the metaverse should not cause any of these.
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