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Where’s My Virtual Reality?
When I was a young teenager, everybody everywhere seemed to be talking about virtual reality. While it was a huge craze, nobody was really doing it effectively. Nintendo and some other companies had some abortive attempts to produce functional gaming systems using VR technology, but nobody really delivered on it. Yet the concept went strong for years, despite any real working example of it. Then suddenly it disappeared from the public mind as quickly as it had come. Why? Where did it go? Was it simply that the public finally caught on that the technology just didn’t exist yet? Or were we simply being primed and conditioned for things to come?
There’s an interesting quote by evil marketing genius Clotaire Rapaille from PBS’s “Persuaders” documentary where he talks about working with Nestle to prime a market for their products years in advance of the actual product being on sale at all. In case you’re not familiar with his work, Rapaille is the guy who is all about diving the “codes” and imprints that people have with concepts, which companies then exploit through marketing. Rapaille explains about his work for the Nestle corporation:
It was really to tell them, for example, that the Japanese don’t have a first imprint of coffee. What first imprint they have is tea. And so when you go into this category, in what we call taxonomy, mental taxonomy, it’s like a mental category they have, and you cannot compete with this category. So you have to create the category. And so we started, for example, with a dessert for children with a taste of coffee. We created an imprint of the taste of coffee. And then we acknowledge the Japanese want to do one thing at a time, and the Swiss understood that very well. They start with this kind of a product. They start selling coffee, but through dessert, things that were sweet, get the people accustomed to the taste of coffee, and after that they followed the generations. And when they were teenagers they start selling coffee, and first there was coffee with milk at the beginning, and then they went to coffee, and now they have a big market for coffee in Japan.
While I recognize that the simple explanation of the technology just not existing to support the hype of the VR heyday, some part of me wonders if this wasn’t part of a long range marketing scheme, such as Rapaille describes above. Maybe the idea was somehow to instill this idealized concept of virtual reality technology in those of us in a certain age bracket. We then carry that seed with us for x number of years as it germinates, and then they spring the technology on us, full-fledged when our cultural concepts have finally caught up with our technological capabilities.
So how long until we have the real deal? How long until we get the completely immersive, fully interactive virtual reality worlds we were promised as children? And what will happen once we get them?
March 10th, 2006 at 9:10 am
This reminds me of the hype back in the late 60s and early 70s about video telephones. We had telephone people come in and show us working models of video telephones and we were ardently assured we’d all have one by the late 70s, they’d be as common as TVs were becoming.
While we now have telephones that send pictures and such, the working video phones we saw back then (think the Star Trek monitors of the original Trek) still aren’t available.
March 10th, 2006 at 1:12 pm
Agreed on the videophones, all the comic books of the 60s showed that more advanced civilisations would have them, and every science fiction author from Heinlein to Tiptree used them (Heinlein to great effect in Stranger in a Strange Land). Another thing we should have had by now are aircars (Tiptree called them suncars on the assumption they’d run on solar power).
Star Trek introduced a great many things that were in production at the time and that are commonplace today; other things, such as the automatic sliding doors and world peace, are still out of reach.
I’ve always considered what you’re talking about to be a sort of “meme”age, although I don’t use that term lightly (pause for brief digression into the very use of the term “meme” by people who have never read The Selfish Gene, Consciousness Explained, or even Snow Crash, &c., &c.). I know of a good many people who believe that the concept of intelligent extraterrestrial life, as presented to us in a variety of ways over the years, is just such an example of imprinting. They believe that we have already made contact or are about to, and the truth is being kept from the general public until we the unwashed morons general public are “ready” for it — in the Future, that is!
March 10th, 2006 at 1:39 pm
we have automatic sliding doors. they just don`t open fast enough sometimes. the one`s in star trek snapped open, sharp like the creases in spock`s pants.
we have been promised a lot of things over the years……..paperless offices, loyal women, labour saving devices, etc. but here we are working harder, stressing out more and buying technology only to find that we`re the ones who are beta testing it for the manufacturer.
March 10th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
Austin Powers spoofed the vid phone thing the best.
When Austin is in the 60’s, the vid is crystal clear.
When he goes to the 90’s, all jerky and streamy like we know it is.
My take on the VR - shit don’t work as well as advertised.
Ask Ron Popeil…
One of the funniest Futurama’s I’ve seen, Fry (PHILIP j fry…) wins a VR shoot em up game, and is dancing around shooting into the air, all champ like and heroic, in the VR game. Cut to him in the real world, he’s a goof with a helmet and wires, slack jawed grin and dorky laff, running on the spot.
March 10th, 2006 at 5:31 pm
futurama is awesome. lela is hot……..for a cyclops.
March 10th, 2006 at 6:35 pm
http://www.goertzel.org/books/spirit/contents.htm
This guy insinuates that VR development was explicitly halted because of its high potential to trigger mystical experiences. Very plausible, imo.
March 10th, 2006 at 6:41 pm
Loyal women??!? Perhaps Cliff Pickover can help.
March 10th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
[…] will add more than is currently on there. Anyway, JK and I spent a long time talking about virtual reality last night, and the connections between the two topics go […]
March 10th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
no cliff didn`t………………..
March 10th, 2006 at 9:38 pm
One of my favorite virtual reality spoofs on TV is the Simpsons episode where Bart & Lisa refuse to do their chores of yardwork. Then they go to some kind of expo, and Bart really wants to go on the yardwork simulator.
March 11th, 2006 at 1:37 am
I think VR with goggles is more likely to cause migraine than mystical experiences.
March 11th, 2006 at 2:01 pm
cliff does have some interesting ideas though.
March 12th, 2006 at 6:56 am
“I think VR with goggles is more likely to cause migraine than mystical experiences.”
Nice opinion.