Rituals and Meaning in the Digital Age
We are increasingly holding rituals, from weddings to funerals, in digital spaces. Are they still meaningful?
It was late 2020 and a wedding where over 2,000 guests were in attendance. Except none of them were in the same place. Including the couple getting married. They were in Virtual Reality. In World of Warcraft, when a player dies, it is common that the clan they were fighting with to hold a funeral for them.
How and where we conduct certain rituals in our lives is changing in the digital age. So much so that it is impacting cultural elements such as customs and traditions in the real world as well. This has us asking if these digital rituals are as valid as real life? Do they hold true value over time? Are they legitimate?
Rituals are important to societies and cultures. They aren’t inherently religious either. Many of us have morning and evening rituals that we call routines, but they are actually rituals. Family and community activities can become ritualistic in nature as well.
Here, I’m exploring the intersection of more social rituals at the intersection of our digital and physical worlds. Weddings, funerals, coming-of-age ceremonies and other deeply meaningful activities that change our worlds and actions in the real world, but are conducted in the digital world.
Many rituals have actions that involve the physical body. The kiss at the end of a wedding ceremony, or the tying of hands in pagan weddings. Throwing coloured powders at the Indian festival of Diwali. Rituals mark significant changes in our lives. We use them to place that significance into context and they are shared with others as a social signal of the significance of that change.
So are they meaningful when they are conducted in Virtual Reality and other digital spaces like online games or video meet ups? Many rituals have physical artefacts as a result of the activity; wedding rings, headstones for graves, certain attire. They are social signals that tell others our status in our cultures. But are digital artefacts as valuable when they can be so easily, accidental or otherwise, deleted?
Digital communities don’t tend to last as long as physical communities either. As our lives change, people come and go from digital communities. My netnographic research over the past decade into online communities shows that the average length of time people stay engaged is around 2.5 years.
This also has s questioning the role of the body in digital rituals. Is a virtual wedding dress and ring as meaningful to the physical body? In many other rituals the body plays a key role, but if you can’t involve the physical body, does the ritual change and if it does, is it still seen as valid in the eyes of a culture as it is in the real world?
Some will see virtual rituals as not being truly meaningful, while others believe that they are just as meaningful, especially if there is some resulting artefact created from the ritual. Spaces are often created for rituals in the real world. So are they as meaningful when they are digital spaces? It’s not an easy or simple answer and will depend on the social group. It is up to them in the end.
One benefit of digital rituals is that it can connect people who are geographically separated, such as bringing in family members who may live in other countries. Weddings and funerals, even bar and bat mitzvah’s, are streamed today so distant friends and families can participate. This can be very meaningful for people. This also changes the temporal dynamics of rituals when people can participate across multiple time zones.
What too happens when the digital space where rituals are conducted is a business and it shuts down? That virtual space can no longer be accessed. But such a change can happen in the real world if a church, temple or mosque shutters. Yet thousands of years later we still have the pyramids and stone henge.
Digital technologies are having a significant impact and influence on the meaning of rituals in the digital age. We are having to rethink so many aspects of cultural norms, behaviours and traditions. How they are passed from one generation to the other and their meaning to a society.
Some changes we have quickly embraced, while others we push back on. Often, this is an intergenerational aspect. Younger generations are always changing cultures. It’s been that way since we started hanging out together so many thousands of years ago.
While the idea of a singular metaverse hasn’t panned out yet, perhaps some day it will. Virtual Reality spaces remain elusive and niche, but are no less culturally valid. If a group of people decide that holding a ritual event in a digital space is desirable and valuable to them, then it is certainly legitimate for that group or society. It is certainly an interesting aspect of culture and society to consider as time goes on.