Gossiping about celebrities with your virtual reality glasses – Joop

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09-23-2021

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reading time 3 minutes

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© cc photo: Maxim Chernisev

About juice channels and a new way of the Internet

Nico Haasbroek comments weekly on media developments.

In this column I strive for a variety between thematic attention to media issues, reminiscing about my own journalistic past, and responding to current events. Today I choose striking media news from the newspaper. This is what the Algemeen Dagblad talks about juice channels or ‘juice channels’. The NRC takes the concept metaverse a closer look. That I can still experience that. Fantastic.

According to AD (9/18/21), a juice channel is all about juicy online gossip. I’ve read gossip about celebrities being spread across Instagram and YouTube, often by young people who know nothing about journalism or even want to know. “They post news, in many cases screenshots of advice they’ve received or photos from other people’s social media channels.” Sometimes also nude photos. It’s not about whether the stories are true, I get it, as long as you can laugh about it.

Yvonne Coldewijer, who goes by Alberta Verlinde, thinks Shownieuws and RTL Boulevard are unsalted garbage. What she seems to count for the most is the number of followers, which should justify this novel form of gossip, transgression and sensationalism.

I don’t like that at all and I wonder what I would do if I were Yvonne’s father? I think he would say, “It’s nice that you’re being so spontaneous and energetic online, but I wouldn’t mind if you tried to be a little less flippant about your skills.”

At least as crazy, but completely different, is the metaverse. The NRC (9/14/21) wonders in an interesting article if the end of the screen era is near and clarifies this new phenomenon: ‘The idea is that in the future people will no longer connect through screens flat, but in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). In VR, images are projected in front of the eyes, giving the user the feeling of being in a different space. In AR, digital images are projected onto the real world. Advanced VR and AR goggles, digital contact lenses, or even brain implants should make the metaverse possible.”

I shouldn’t think about that. Typically things that are invented to make money and to penetrate a person’s personal life. I don’t need extra weird glasses or bits of tech in my brain to become half robot. And why do I have to feel like I’m in another space? I associate the metaverse with the world of science fiction, invented science, and that is not my world. But who am I?

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg says in the NRC story that the development of this digital meta-universe should be a more natural way to connect to the Internet. “Man is not made to consume each other through small luminous rectangles.” When I see what Marc has achieved with Facebook, there are many reasons to be wary of his ambitions.

The NRC also raises the question of whether the metaverse is a dream up in the air. The writer, Reinier Kist, responds in a clichéd way that only time will tell. There are also still many technical obstacles. The Guardian’s Sean Monohan predicts that audiences won’t be excited about the metaverse anytime soon, perhaps because so many people love reality and are beginning to wonder if they’ve gotten too addicted to smartphones and other technical achievements.

I don’t think it will bother me too much if I don’t experience the metaverse anymore. I like to watch TV, I already have an artificial hip and glasses and I’m happy with what my laptop and smartphone can already do. When I sit in my garden with a good book and a good latte, I can reconcile myself to the idea that my world is shrinking instead of expanding with the helmets, implants, and new dimensions of power-hungry guys like Mark. Suikerbuik.

Can stillness sometimes also be progress?

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