Fear and Liking in the Metaverse. My HiveFest Experience

x-rain (71)in OCD • 2 years ago

@dreemsteem has mentioned potential reasons why some Hiveans didn’t want to join Hivefest:

– I don't like being with people
– I don't have anything to say
– No one wants to really hear me anyway
– We aren't really friends

I would add one more reason:

– I can’t speak English enough well.

FEAR

Personally, I have had a large experience of speaking English thanks to traveling in Asia for several years. But most people I talked to weren’t native speakers and I have never been to English-speaking countries.

Moreover, since the pandemic started, I haven't traveled so I have had few opportunities of speaking English.

Youtube and BBC documentaries are fine for me but movies and series are usually too complicated - I need English subtitles.

^{My avatar at HiveFest 2021}

Talking to avatars can be even trickier: you can’t see facial expressions, lips, and gestures. And what if your interlocutor has a low-quality microphone?..

This is why the thought of joining HiveFest made me nervous.

"What if someone asks me about, let's say, blockchain technologies? I can say nothing about them even in Russian. I would look an idiot"...

^{A lecture at the main stage of HiveFest 2021}

Nevertheless, I wanted to take part. I am serious about Hive, I didn't want to allow fear to keep me in the dark corner.

I logged in on AltSpaceVR and headed to the main stage.

Since I was new on AltSpaceVR, I couldn't understand who talked to whom and who could hear me, and how loud. I was completely confused.

There was a lecture there already. And I saw a question on the presentation board: "What Hive dapp would you like to be an ambassador of?"

There were still not many people there, and I felt the speaker wanted interaction with the audience and could ask personally me this question at any moment... So what would I answer then? "I don't want to be an ambassador of anything, please leave me alone"?

The thought about this potential situation made me terrified and I, blushed and anxious, clicked "Close the program".

I exhaled tension. The worst expectation came true. 😁

Soon, I learned that all people were automatically muted at the main stage and nobody troubled you with questions there until you raised up your hand. 😁

LIKING

This was an experience!

First of all, avatars have a kind of frozen faces while talking. One look at such a face and you feel that you are talking to a psychotic person 😃 But you get used to 🙂

Secondly, many avatars have a teenager-like appearance and this is another weird thing – hanging out with "teenagers" 🙂

Thirdly, I am new on Hive.Blog and know not many people, I remember not many nicknames. So from the beginning, I wanted just to have a look at the event, experience the new technology (the Metaverse!), and leave unnoticed.

I visited a couple of lectures and had a talk to wonderful @qwerrie so my mission seemed to be complete.

^{Meeting @qwerrie}

But I felt meeting only a person who I know in real life and chatting only in Russian (so comfortable) were admission of communication defeat. Also, I learned about the Meeting Contest and wanted to send “H” at least to one person. 🙂

However, I still hesitated because of fear of failure. Then, someone approached me. It was an Indian guy with, unfortunately, a dysfunctional microphone. Nevertheless, the ice was broken. My English woke up as well as my inner extravert slipped out of the tiny dirty cell where he was locked for weeks 😁

^{That guy. No badge but I remember his name was Kalyan Surya, India}

Then, I talked to @malomi (Venezuela) and @princekham (Shan State, Myanmar) and finally realised that I was not the only brave non-native speaker at the event. 🙂

Lately, I chatted to @dreemsteem, @loonatic, @thelogicaldude, @bighungrypanda. I had a good frank conversation with @wil.metcalfe about our Hive experience and future of the community.

It was the very end of the second day when I realized I wanted more of HiveFest.

I decided to look at what was happening at the locations. Several people went on hanging out at the campfire place. One person was sitting alone in silence at the main stage, a couple of people were talking to each other at the gallery.

I thought about joining them but I suddenly felt my mental battery was already low after several hours in AltSpaceVR. Besides, it was a late hour in Russia. "The best is an enemy of the good", I thought, and decided to leave the Metaverse.

For some reason, I slept for 12 hours that night.

As the result, I am number 22 in the HiveFest Meeting Contest. 😀 And this is my cute NFT award for being a brave introvert 😄 by dlux.io:

Screenshot 2021-11-16 at 18-35-28 DLUX - Me.png

Thanks to everybody for chatting and the event!

Best regards,
@x-rain

#metaverse #altspacevr #hivefest #virtual #meetup #hive #creativecoin #archon #neoxian #proofofbrain

2 years ago in OCD by x-rain (71)

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qwerrie (76) 2 years ago

a pleasure to read your story, probably I will reblog it to have always at my hands - the thing I dont do often.
great that you made it, would be a sad thing to miss... you may feel proud! and I feel a bit frustrated when I think we were there perhaps the only two Russian 'representatives' this time.

!PIZZA and !BEER to celebrate your success in the breaking the Ice challenge.
I found myself at#22 -- which means I met only you and @dreemstime... which obviously is not true.

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x-rain (71) 2 years ago

😃 Thank you!

Only two, yes.

So don't you want to write a HiveFest report? Maybe some good images of people from there? I don't have because of bad internet connection, I guess (I have a hardware trouble with the wifi router). Look at the flying badge:

This was a selfie with a person. 80% of images were like this so I stopped taking them. :( Happily, some photos of people were fine so I included them into the post.

They have counted only those people who had sent you "H" back. Some of people I met didn't so I have the shorter list on hivebuzz too. Minus 3.

And +1 because I exchanged Hs with a person who just was standing near me during a group conversation 🙂 But I didn't mention them in the post.