Interviews

Our kids are already meta-veterans.

In the west, people like to show off they have been on holiday without saying they have been on holiday with the colour of their skin. A conspicuous consumption to prove you have escaped gloomy weather or the gloomy office no sun microclimate.

Conversely within Bangladeshi culture, people like to show off they are ‘fair’ and light skinned. Partly Eurocentric beauty ideals (though contradicting Eurocentric ideals these days of wanting a tan) and partly to show you do not have something worse than an office job, a job in the fields.

We call it colourism.

A way of sort of being racist within our own brown skinned cultures but also additional to normal racism. Meta-racism. The skin lightening industry is worth around $20billion which big players like J&J and Unilever have been part of and perpetuate with their marketing and advertising. But times have changed as recent as 2020. Because of consumer pressure, these companies have discontinued their skin lightening ranges and have been forced to change the narrative about what is beautiful.

I don’t think I have seen so many black women of all shades in fashion and beauty than over the last 2 years. There is the other thing .. .with shrinking populations in the west, brown and black people of all shades are a huge growing customer market; noted by other consumer facing industries as well.

What about gaming and the metaverse ? Kids identities and appearances are further being shaped within these new worlds more than real ones. But probably to date more exclusively white than even beauty and fashion ?

Like fashion and beauty, there have been recent changes with new game characters who are incidentally black rather than as a necessary part of a cliché derogatory narrow narrative.

The metaverse culture may be less of a game but more of an extension of other digital social clubs such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook which I know are totally gamified. Instagram is has been heavily criticised for potentially harming the mental health of girls. Here are some stark statistics on cyberbullying, https://enough.org/stats_cyberbullying.

Here harassment is directed at the target through multiple fake accounts by peer group and ex friends. Additionally there are the feelings of inadequacy next to the airbrushed aspirational photos and consequent mental health problems such as dysmorphia [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/sep/27/facebook-pauses-instagram-kids-teen-mental-health-concerns]. And for public figures, there is whole another level of harassment and racism exampled by when the England players lost Euro 2020 ….there was very little any of the social media platforms could do. It’s the virality.

We know how viruses work right ?

The outreach of harassment is way more than even a football stadium (not including the fake accounts and bots)…. It can eat reality for breakfast. Reality resets to reflect opinions normalised often mis-verified by the online world.

When discussing identity and kids in the digital world with Information Experience Design Researcher at Dubit and Senior Lecturer in Immersive Storytelling specialising in children’s digital play, VR and comics,  Dylan Yamada-Rice, she said that,  “Our identity is wrapped up in our appearance in the context of the world. Whatever problems appear in the real world also appear in the digital social space.”

3D worlds have a slightly different way of bullying.

Kids want the new skins for their avatars or assets, if they don’t, they are ostracised and made fun of by their peer groups in real life. And in fact kids are also bullied into gifting their paid for digital items, so the bullying crosses all boundaries. In some ways these worlds are in public view for global humiliation and in other ways they are totally private from their care givers.

We spoke about how parents have to have open communication with their children about value and objects, it is not necessary to have the newest shiny thing. Yes an age old conversation. She also mentioned that having worked on games for children for companies like Lego, how real research with any game or digital space is required for a high quality experience.

She mentioned there are initiatives tackling these issues such as 5Rights Foundation which “exists to make systemic changes to the digital world that will ensure it caters for children and young people, by design and default, so that they can thrive.” [https://5rightsfoundation.com]. Other initiatives include https://www.saferinternet.org.uk.

There is no safe space in an echo chamber for diverse groups (who are increasingly making up the majority and the Eurocentric identity is no longer the ideal).

Published reports repeatedly show the lack of diversity across these industries across the workforce and within the game. 10% of the gaming industry is made up of black or ethnic minorities within the UK [https://ukie.org.uk/resources/raisethegame-one-year-on-report-2020-2021] and around 2% in the US identified as Black/African-American/African/Afro-Caribbean [The International Game Developers Association].

Yet this does not reflect those who play it: the most-active gameplaying demographic is African American teenagers - a 2015 study showed that 83% of non-Hispanic Black teenagers play video games, compared to 71% of Caucasian teenagers, with 69% of Hispanic teens not too far behind

Stanley Pierre-Louis, CEO of the game industry trade group the Entertainment Software Association said “When it comes to diversity, the metaverse will represent a huge opportunity to amplify diverse voices and creators…So simply put, if you’re developing a metaverse, and you’re looking around the room, and everyone looks like you, and they’re not from any different environments, and it raises questions, who’s in the room? And what can I do about it? So I think as we look at the metaverse, whether we’re thinking about it from the video game, industry perspective, or other tech industries, we’ve got to put a finer point on who is being included who is being excluded and how that’s going to shape the future of the metaverse.” [https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/leveling-up-representation-depictions-of-people-of-color-in-video-games/].

There have been a number of initiatives from Government, lobby groups and the companies themselves to tackle these issues. In December 2020,  Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft — collaborated on some safety principles for online conduct. And more recently, Facebook and Niantic, have acknowledged there is no way forward but to think carefully about how to evolve the 3D versions of social spaces - the new iteration of 3D metaverses.

Transparency, governance and codes of conducts, through working with external independent groups are well established routes to improving industries … look at beauty and fashion.

I am hopeful but only if it comes sincerely from the top. Did I mention, it makes business sense as well.

The metaverse isn’t the future us oldies are heralding as the new shiny thing. Right now, Roblox (which can also be experienced in VR) has 164 million monthly active users (75% of all U.S. kids between 9 and 12 years old use Roblox spanning 180 countries), Fortnite has 350 million players and Minecraft has 140 million active players worldwide. No doubt all 3 will be fully functional on all devices imminently.

It’s here already a big part of everyday life for kids who have grown up with it.

Our kids are already meta-veterans.

References

https://dylanyamadarice.com/

 https://enough.org/stats_cyberbullying

https://venturebeat.com/2021/01/28/esa-ceo-why-diversity-matters-for-the-metaverse/

https://digiday.com/marketing/with-the-metaverse-on-the-horizon-its-creators-reflect-on-the-importance-of-diversity-in-the-virtual-world-to-come/

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/medialse/2020/01/30/protecting-children-online-content-regulation-age-verification-and-latest-thinking-on-industry-responsibility/

https://www.saferinternet.org.uk/blog/responding-digital-ghost-stories-%E2%80%93-guide-professionals

https://news.mit.edu/2020/examining-racial-attitudes-in-virtual-spaces-through-gaming-0917

https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/leveling-up-representation-depictions-of-people-of-color-in-video-games/

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/sep/27/facebook-pauses-instagram-kids-teen-mental-health-concerns

https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/14/22174206/sony-microsoft-nintendo-safety-principles-online-gaming-shared-commitment

Colourism in South Asia is a well explored topic from lived experiences to reinforcement through fashion media and advertising especially weighting eligibility in marriage. It traverses all creative genres, and we consider how this is perpetuated in the metaverse.