00:11- There's no really true way
to actually experience this
00:15fully unless you strap
on a headset and get in.
00:26and I love to go out
dancing here in New York.
00:31I'm definitely a night owl
and going to raves and clubs
00:35is where I feel most free.
00:39I'm always looking for
new places to frequent
00:41and that's how I discovered
a new dance scene,
00:45except this one is in VR.
00:50Welcome to the underground
dance scene in virtual reality.
01:04VR grew from a science fiction novelty
01:07to possibly the future
of human interaction
01:10and now many industries have
their sites on the metaverse,
01:15where everyone navigates
life as an avatar,
01:18but this dance scene
isn't like the metaverse
01:21that you hear about on the news,
01:22it's underground and not
associated with any big companies.
01:28Using the platform VRChat,
01:30users can create their own worlds
01:32and even their own avatars, and together,
01:35these creatives invented a dance scene,
01:38complete with clubs, scheduled events,
01:40and even live performances.
01:42I originally set out to find out
01:44how clubbing in virtual
reality compares to real life
01:47but what I discovered was a world
01:49that goes beyond imagination
and a tight-knit community
01:53where you can truly be
whoever you want to be.
02:00I knew that I had to experience
this club scene firsthand,
02:03the problem is, I'm a
newbie when it comes to VR.
02:06Luckily, when poking around
Twitter, I met Electro,
02:09a VRChat creator and DJ
02:11who gave me a crash course on VR
02:13and introduced me to other
cool people in this scene.
02:18The first thing that I had to do
02:20was rent a PC and a headset.
02:24You can technically play
02:25with just the VRChat app
on any Windows computer
02:28but I wanted the full,
immersive experience.
02:32I also took it one step further
02:34and found an artist named Autuna
02:36to create an avatar based
on me and my clothes.
02:39I met up with Autuna in VR
02:41so that I could purchase
the avatar from them.
02:44Nice, thank you so much.
02:46- Yeah, no problem, I hope you like it.
02:48- Now I'm ready to hit
the clubs with Electro,
02:50I'll admit, my movements
felt awkward at first
02:53and I felt a new sense of shyness
02:55that I don't usually feel in real life.
02:57- I feel like it takes a long
time to get used to this.
03:01But after loosening up, the fun began.
03:05The first person Electro
introduced me to was Ru,
03:10who moonlights as one of
VRChat's most prolific DJs.
03:15- [Ru] When I first came
into VR, my story is,
03:18I had a fast growing tumor in my ear,
03:20I was out of work for eight weeks
03:22and I said, "Let me try
this VR thing, why not?"
03:25- [Josef] Ru is a trans woman
03:26and said that she found
safety and acceptance in VR.
03:30- This is maybe a year into my transition
03:33and I was very alone, the
people around me where I live,
03:35kind of abandoned me in my life
03:37and I found this online
family when I got into VR.
03:40I never did this kind of thing
03:42or would've seen myself
doing any of these things.
03:44By any stretch of the imagination,
03:46I was just a nurse in Ohio, that's it.
03:48Now I've got this big,
long list of things on here
03:50that I'm embarrassed to even read off
03:52because it's like I feel
like I'm humble bragging
03:55- [Josef] That night Ru
took me to a new club
03:58designed by the artist TOTC.
04:02Just like many real life venues,
this club scene is 18 plus
04:06and you're invited through
adult only discord servers.
04:09Once inside the club,
04:10it was unlike anything
I'd ever seen before.
04:20Ru got up to DJ and the
Calibrate dance team
04:23with full body tracking, accompanied her.
04:25♪ You make me feel so ♪
04:28- [Josef] It was strange how
the banging music, dancers,
04:31and light show felt like
being in a real nightclub
04:33but this experience surpassed
04:35what is possible in real life.
04:37♪ Free, free, free ♪
04:39♪ You make me feel so free ♪
04:42- [Josef] In this world,
people can truly be whoever
04:45or whatever they like
04:47and that creates a lot of
diversity amongst the crowd.
04:50There are furries dancing
next to anime girls
04:53and robots standing next
to car driving frogs.
04:59- [Josef] But the fact that
you can present yourself
05:01as whoever you want to
05:02has made this scene a safe space
05:04for trans and non-binary people.
05:06When your real life body doesn't fit,
05:08you can create an avatar that
matches who you really are.
05:11- [Ru] Unlike in the real world
05:13where expensive surgery
may be what I need
05:15to get how I want to feel about myself,
05:17I can come in here and
I can look how I want,
05:19I can control the presentation and image
05:22that I give to others,
05:23and for trans individuals,
trans men, and trans women,
05:25that is extremely powerful.
05:29- I don't know if I just felt
safe hiding behind the headset
05:32but unlike when I attend a real life club,
05:34I didn't feel like anyone
was judging the way I look
05:37or the goofy way that I dance.
05:39- You having a good time Jojo?
05:42- I'm glad hun, very glad,
welcome to our world,
05:45we're happy to have you here with us.
05:51- [Josef] This idea of the
metaverse is not at all new,
05:54growing up, I spent a lot of
time in avatar-based chat rooms
05:57like Habbo Hotel, IMVU, and Second Life.
06:01VRChat feels very similar and
there's a reason for that.
06:05Text and avatar-based chat rooms
06:07are the predecessors of
VRChat which came out in 2017,
06:11following a successful relaunch
06:13of consumer VR headsets in 2016.
06:16With this new ability to
be able to create avatars
06:19that track to your real life movements,
06:21VRChat users began to
create dance communities.
06:24This is one of the first
venues, DanceDanceVR
06:27which formed in January, 2018.
06:30Following the creation of DDVR,
06:31other venues began popping
up, like Dirty Dancers,
06:35Elysium KMK, and Rizumu.
06:38This is Aliquem, owner of Rizumu,
06:41she manages a team of
hosts, promoters, DJs,
06:44and everything else needed
to operate the venue.
06:47VRChat is free and so are the parties.
06:50For Aliquem, this is a passion project
06:52where she can hang out and
party with her friends.
06:58- My social life wasn't the greatest
06:59in real life I guess, but here,
07:01I kinda started to find a
new confidence in myself
07:05after meeting all the
amazing people that I have.
07:10Just like a total 360 of
where I was without it,
07:14that it's almost really unbelievable.
07:20- [Josef] By the end of 2019,
07:22the attendance in VR clubs
had been steadily growing,
07:25but nobody anticipated
that a global pandemic
07:28would shut down nightlife everywhere.
07:30- You know, a lot of
people probably felt like
07:31their whole world was
collapsing because of it,
07:33like for us, that are, you know,
I guess like regulars here,
07:36it's like nothing changed.
07:37- [Josef] With nightclubs
on pause in the real world,
07:40people turned to virtual
spaces for entertainment.
07:43- Especially with this pandemic going on,
07:45how are people supposed to interact
07:46in a safe environment?
07:47Zoom call? Let's take
it a little bit higher.
07:50- This actually does feel
07:51like just talking to someone
in real life in a way.
07:54Other than that, we are
both anime characters.
08:00there were 18,000
simultaneous users on VRChat.
08:04This last New Year's Eve,
there were almost 90,000.
08:10On my last night in the VR dance scene,
08:12I actually visited a club that
formed during the pandemic,
08:16the club is called Shelter
08:17and it was created by 2TD and Kye.
08:20When you enter Shelter,
08:21you load into a company office building.
08:27From there, you take the
stairs down to a warehouse
08:30where the company is
shipping out VR headsets.
08:33You could say it's very... meta.
08:35Once outside, you're on
the night streets of LA,
08:38take a back alleyway
behind a records store,
08:40and you end up in an underground bunker
08:42that has been transformed
into a nightclub.
08:482TD started as a DJ and
musician for in person events
08:51but when the pandemic started,
08:52that all came crashing to a halt.
08:55- I lost my manager,
08:57I lost all the agents I was talking to,
08:59it was like I was almost at
that point where I was like,
09:01"Oh, maybe I'll be able
to do this for a living,"
09:03and it just got ripped, like it was like,
09:07- [Josef] After meeting Kye in VRChat,
09:09the two created their own virtual club.
09:11- It saved my whole project.
09:13I've been doing this for 12-ish
years and the entire time,
09:18I never felt like what I did mattered,
09:20I never felt like I could make things
09:23that people cared about,
and then it was like,
09:26people come up to me
09:27and tell me that it's saved them
09:28from being in a really
bad negative mindset,
09:32oh, sorry, it messes me
up when I talk about it.
09:44- Kye, how many hours do
you think you've spent
09:47building this world?
09:48- A lot, and it was with other people too.
09:51- [Josef] Kye and his
team designed and created
09:53every part of this space,
from the graffiti alleyways
09:57to the ceiling panels inside the venue,
09:59it's all custom-made.
10:01- Absolutely changed
my life for the better
10:03in so many ways, gotten
away from so much bad stuff,
10:07like I don't know where I'd
be if I didn't have this, so.
10:13- Shelter's not the only
place with original designs,
10:16in fact, all of these
clubs are user-generated
10:19by members of the community.
10:21It's almost like the
Wild West a little bit.
10:23- Yeah, I like that.
10:25- That's what art's supposed
to be in my opinion.
10:28- Like Punk DIY meets the matrix.
10:35- [Josef] This creative
freedom is a big reason
10:37why VRChat has become
second reality for many.
10:40- This is a reality,
10:43there is a person standing right here,
10:45I cannot touch him
physically, but they are here,
10:49like, I can talk to them
10:50and they can teach me how to do calculus
10:54and then I can go to a
job and use that calculus,
10:57like, that's real, that's
a real skill, you know?
11:00Like I've learned so many real
skills from people in here.
11:03I just had a piano recital,
I play classical piano.
11:06I taught somebody in
VRChat classical piano.
11:11- When I talk to people
11:12who have never experienced
this world before,
11:14many express a fear that virtual reality
11:17is gonna replace the
world that we live in.
11:19Recently, Seoul in South Korea
11:21announced that they're creating
11:22a metaverse version of their city
11:24so that citizens can
visit the mayor's office
11:27or attend mass events in virtual reality.
11:30Here in the United States,
11:31some companies have even
started hosting company meetings
11:36But for the members of this scene,
11:38VR doesn't replace real life,
it just adds another option
11:42and sometimes it offers an
escape when real life gets hard.
11:46- Even if it is just like
a dance party community
11:49or whatever, there is a lot
of love and passion here
11:51for everybody and it's just,
11:52I don't think there's
anything better than that
11:54that I could probably ever ask for.
11:58If I didn't have that,
11:58I wouldn't be standing in front of you.
12:01- When I first heard
about VRChat, I thought,
12:04"Oh, it's just a video game,"
12:06but after meeting this community,
12:08I learned that it's much more
than that to many people.
12:12How do you think this
scene will be remembered
12:16- For one, as the real metaverse,
12:19we always say this is our metaverse
12:21and nobody's stealing it.
12:24- [Josef] As technology
is rapidly changing
12:26the world around us,
12:27these creators are on the
cutting edge of nightlife scene,
12:30but what impresses me the
most about this community
12:34is that the venues and
avatars may be virtual
12:37but the relationships and bonds
they form are all very real.
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