Integrating physical and digital worlds in China

Coco Wu and Harry Kinnear at Space Doctors explain what China’s digital connectivity can teach us about the metaverse

 

Beaten only by ‘goblin mode’, it was little surprise that ‘metaverse’ came second as the Oxford Dictionary Word of the Year for 2022. In less than two years, a vibrant cultural conversation has exploded as multiple tech companies, media organisations and brands vie to stake a claim on this emerging marketplace. 

 

But for such a now-ubiquitous talking point, there’s still startlingly little real understanding of the metaverse (in short, any virtual space that encourages interaction between people). It’s perhaps more helpful for our understanding to speak of ‘metaverses’ as a plural - and to let go of the idea of them as avatar-packed, crypto-fuelled, futuristic spaces only accessible through a VR headset.

 

The cultural context

In the west, there’s still a prevailing division in people’s minds between ‘physical’ (‘real’) spaces and ‘digital’ (’virtual’) realms. It’s a distinction that’s sorely outdated when you consider the merging of the two in everyday life; whether that’s through meetings on Zoom, or more complex alternate realities like Fortnite.

 

In China, however, people understand the integration of ‘real’ and ‘online’ - and therefore the metaverse - far more intuitively. But why?

 

As a result of the Chinese Economic Reforms - or ‘Opening Up’ - of the 1970s and 80s, Chinese people were suddenly able to access western brands, culture and information as never before. Tech was always a key component in the rapid speed of urbanisation and financial growth; as evidenced by the fact that China is now by far the largest e-commerce market in the world. 

 

In more recent history, China’s extended Covid lockdowns (China only lifted its most severe Covid policies  in December 2022) have seen metaverses thrive as people sought communities virtually.  Things like ‘cloud clubbing’ with live streaming DJs (and ‘doge’ dogs playing basketball) - one of the earliest popular metaverses - have become part of the cultural fabric. 

 

Technology has also long been integrated into the Chinese education system, so it’s perhaps little surprise that Chinese universities have quickly adapted to incorporate ideas around the metaverse. In October last year, Nankai University’s School of Journalism and Communications launched a detailed virtual model of one of its teaching buildings that students can freely navigate as avatars; while many institutions have founded their own metaverse research laboratories, according to China-focused editorial platform SixthTone.

 

The Chinese government has been heavily promoting the idea of the ‘Chinaverse’ (Chinese metaverse), officially incorporating it into China’s 14th five-year-plan in 2021. While the government is actively looking to boost the national digital economy, it’s also imposing specific rules that suggest it will be notably distinctive from its western counterpart as it depends on a centralised, government-owned private blockchain.

 

As Bethanie Ryder, Metaverse Editor at JingDaily suggests, “China’s Web3 rulebook is siloed and specific… But as a result, fresh, highly localised trends have emerged across the country that are yet to gain traction in the west, such as virtual influencers and shopping livestreams in the metaverse [which are] indicative of China’s confidence and innovation”.

 

More abstract elements of the culture in China are also worth noting. Chinese people tend to be highly entrepreneurial, leaping on new opportunities to improve their lives and express themselves. The popularity of live streaming platforms underscores that tendency, as people from all backgrounds are finding an easy, accessible way to transcend ‘real’ life and change their situations through tech: China’s ‘#1 Rapper’ is a mother from the rural Liaoning countryside who found overnight success on video platform Douyin, for instance.

 

Participation v cultural practice

When you compare tech platforms that are prevalent in China with those in the west, one of the most crucial differences is in how people are expected to use them. Instagram relies on and demands participation from users; while China’s WeChat, on the other hand, forms an extension of existing cultural practices. 

 

WeChat’s money transfer service, for instance, was born out of the Chinese cultural tradition of exchanging money in the New Year and predated online banking going mainstream - it’s not a stretch to say that cultural practice normalised e-banking through digital integration. Likewise, China has the world’s largest Buddhist population - and is increasingly taking the religion online.

 

The west can learn a lot about cutting down barriers to entry to metaverses - bringing the spaces to users, rather than expecting people to come to them. In China, tech companies are savvy to the idea of building on people’s existing behaviour: an app from Alibaba financial called Ant Forest, for instance, encourages people’s positive environmental lifestyle choices and gives them financial rewards in return. 

 

As such initiatives indicate, metaverses are most successful when they facilitate and build on existing behaviour in some way.

 

Fashion and the metaverse

Many of the most interesting metaverse-based brand activations have been in the luxury and fashion sectors, underscoring the inherent links between identity and the metaverse.

 

Adidas did a good job of tapping into the metaverse’s connection with identity in its Ozworld experience, a personality-based AI-generated avatar creation platform launched in April 2022. People could create countless avatars to perform different functions, offering the powerful benefit of enabling users to play with various characters that represent different, but authentic, parts of themselves. 

 

Naturally, China was ahead of the game: Shanghai Fashion Week started presenting metaverse-based runway shows as a reaction to Covid restrictions, but has since evolved to become an encapsulation of the metaverse’s potential to liberate events from the ‘real world’ restrictions of time and place. 

 

Shanghai Fashion Week 2022, for instance, partnered with Xiaohongshu - a social media and e-commerce platform - allowing users to try on ‘digital fashion items’ and share the resulting image, marrying futuristic fashion with real-life settings.  

 

What brands can learn

Brands need to avoid the mindset of the metaverse as a destination, instead seeing it as a function that should seamlessly integrate into people’s lives. Crucially, it should give consumers something that they need and want - people shouldn’t have to be persuaded to access these spaces. 

 

Brands need to have a clearly defined purpose when it comes to the metaverse, and avoid the temptation to join the hype for the sake of it. Of course, each brand will have a different purpose, but it’s important they think through what they want to achieve and how using the metaverse can help realise that.

 

The west can learn a lot from China’s ability to see beyond the metaverse’s capacity for commerce and entertainment, and explore its potential to both educate and genuinely aid people’s lives in a more holistic way that crosses into the physical.

 

To see the metaverse simply as a space for commodification and selling, or for entertainment, misses the whole point of it - and the opportunity. Rather, it’s. Brands that shoehorn their way in without taking that into account will stand out for all the wrong reasons. Conversely, those that make the best use of the metaverse will be the ones that create the space and freedom for people to explore themselves, as well as the product.

 

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Coco Wu is a semiotician and consultant at Space Doctors and Harry Kinnear is associate director at Space Doctors a global cultural and creative consultancy fuelled by the very best of semiotics, cultural insight and analyticsVisit space-doctors.com/ for more information

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com