How has virtual reality changed our world?
Well, this literate form of ‘virtual discussion’ certainly works for me. I get to be breezy, confident, opinionated, virile, etc., without being gainsaid by my appearance, which signals my ‘real world’ status, my ‘demographic portfolio.’ I like that. Here, I gain a measure of respect I cannot find without the interposition of the monitor and keyboard. It has had implications in the real world: emboldened by my fortunes here, I find that I move with greater power when I’m offline. I venture opinion, dare to make contact, and so on. I’m (effectively) practicing here what I will do later ‘for real.’ I doubt that I’m alone in this. Enormously fat women, given short shrift in the real world, can here be luminous figures, and (I daresay), this can bolster their egos against the pricks they must receive when they leave the keyboard. Weird wizened little nerds, who would ‘in real life’ devote most of their attention to avoiding being beaten up by the testosterone-poisoned, can here earn a meas
