Media and Ambivalence| The Ambivalences of Virtual Love: Conversational, Embodied, and Hyperreal Intimacy in the Social VR Platform VRChat

Abstract

The advent of new technologies is constantly reshaping the virtual landscape of intimacy. This study focuses on social virtual reality (VR) platforms, a novel form of social media that prioritizes immersive verbal and visual communication. To understand the various forms of virtual intimacy individual users may experience in social VR and how these experiences can reflect and reconstruct the ambivalences between virtuality and reality, I conducted a two-year digital ethnography and in-depth interviews on a popular social VR platform named VRChat. Three forms of intimacy are identified: (1) conversational intimacy that reflects the ambivalences of escaping and engaging; (2) embodied intimacy that reflects the ambivalences of being unreal and more real than real; and (3) hyperreal intimacy that reflects the ambivalences of light and deep communication. Hyperreal intimacy can function as an effective concept in understanding the potential achievement of virtuality-reality harmony through more in-depth, soul-to-soul, and authentic interpersonal connections in today’s emerging virtual environments.