Life in Virtual Reality: Exploring lived Experiences and Social Interactions of Long-Term VRChat Users

What does social life in VR feel like? In a life-world analytical field study in the social VR platform VRChat, Felix Krell examines the lived experience of long-term social VR users from a phenomenological perspective. He investigates hybridization processes in virtual emplacement and embodiment as well as perceptual intricacies that frame a matured, long-term Social VR experience. An in-depth sociological inquiry then covers how long-term users shape their everyday social interactions within this perceptual framework. Grounded on (auto-)ethnographical data as well as 32 ethnographic interviews, the text provides multidisciplinary insight of how a social life inside Virtual Reality is experienced and negotiated by those who are most privy to it.