Interview with Dr. Ruth Diaz: Part 3
Part of the Season One "VR is Alive" Finale
Content warning: Suicide. The second image and third question of this article begins a discussion on suicidality and suicide hotlines for Suicide Prevention Month.
: For this final interview of the first year in the VR is Alive Series, we are fortunate to join Dr. Ruth Diaz (she/they) earlier this year to chat about her vast experience as a social scientist inside and outside of multiple social virtual reality platforms, visiting virtual worlds she designed or recognized along the way...
What advice do you have for people who are new to social VR?
The advice for anyone entering social VR is this: When people come into social VR for the first time, and this is literally their first encounter with other humans, they’re like, Whoa, when you move, you look like a real person. This was usually a spot where volunteers or I would stop and explain the evolution of developing a sense of community.
A lot of people come into social VR after playing solo games, so they look at it like, This is another game. Where are the rules? Then they start to realize you don’t necessarily earn points here, but you might earn a friend. This was just a pathway to normalize that everyone in any group coming in here and learning together was somewhere on this path. You didn’t have to follow these steps exactly. You could be a consumer newbie and go directly to organizing with the community. That’s why it’s purple up there. These are not linear steps—they’re just the average evolution of steps.
What I found was that influencers don’t see this stairway. When they see leaders, they see influencers. They don’t understand the difference. When they see a leader, they think, Oh, you have power. I want your power. I see how people respond to you. I’m going to pull at your power. This was a way to break down how that power happens, what it means to be a leader, and how we practice using our power on purpose together.
So, I would say to someone looking for their place in social VR: Find a friend, find a glitch, find an error, find a missing spot. There are many corners in social VR that haven’t been tended to or guardianed yet. Go sit there, be uncomfortable, and wonder who didn’t show up to build a bridge there. Have people fallen off in that particular category? Have they disappeared thinking, My people aren’t here? Go occupy that place and start to dream. Start to have a vision of how it could be different. Then gather people to build that dream and vision with you.
Usually, it doesn’t go that way. People think, Well, I didn’t find the world I wanted, so I’m going to build The Voice or some competition show I’ve always wanted to be on, and I’m going to build that and hope people come and role-play with me. That’s usually how it goes. But I would say: Know that there’s a deeper evolution happening, and be curious about it. Even if you think you arrived here accidentally, be curious about your calling. Listen for it. Allow for the possibility that everyone is called here, and everyone will leave. Can we consciously arrive and consciously go? That’s my question.
You’ve definitely had quite a journey in VR and life in physical reality. If you're able to go back to your former self when you joined your first instance in social VR, what would you tell yourself knowing what you know now?
I love that. That reminds me of a Sarah McLachlan song. I don’t know all the words to it, but I think it’s the chorus line she sings over and over again. It might be Alanis Morissette—it’s one of those two. But she sings, Hold on, hold on to yourself. This is going to hurt like hell. That song comforted me a lot in my teen years because it helped me understand that I was already in hell. Someone had gotten here a little earlier than me and tried to tell me it was going to be super painful. And then I got more of a sense of self, identity, and life, and it hurt less.
I didn’t realize how much less it hurt until I came in here and saw just how much pain there was everywhere. So many lost souls. I mean, so, so lost. Not lost because they forgot they belong to God or anything—just lost from themselves. That’s the hardest place to be lost—from yourself, from your body, from any hope that you’re ever going to belong.
So I would say: Hold on, this is going to hurt like hell. You will lose all of you, and you might not survive it. And then something new will be born. It will be more of you than you ever thought possible. And it still might not ever be worth it. And all those things exist at the same time.
You know, despite all the harm I rail and howl about, the gift of this place is that I came into this not believing myself to be an artist or a creator. I came into this thinking I was a social worker, maybe an innovator of sorts, because the model had already been born. And then the creative side of me just f***ing unleashed in here. I’ve built hundreds of experiences, and more and more I couldn’t keep that separate from the professional me, from the servant leader-of-sorts version of me. Eventually, they just locked onto each other and became the same human.
Now, I see all humans in physical and virtual reality as creators. That is a gift—to stop seeing creators as just the artists who suffered but made money doing it. To realize that we’re all creators, but we just forgot that when we were very, very young. I’ve always enjoyed being creative and curious, but I hadn’t really explored the balance of all that behind it.
ArmaniXR: Just thinking about society and how we can help each other, I noticed that September is Suicide Prevention Month. What message do you have as a social scientist for people in VR about this?
Yes, this is an important time to reflect on how we can support each other, especially in the unique context of virtual reality (VR). VR presents both incredible opportunities and challenges for mental health. As a social scientist working in VR, I’ve noticed that everything in these spaces can feel heightened, and the disconnection between our physical selves and our virtual experiences can sometimes amplify feelings of isolation or distress, including suicidal thoughts.
While there are great opportunities for connection, I must also acknowledge that VR is a relatively new space, and we currently lack comprehensive studies on how suicidality specifically manifests in these environments. What I’m sharing comes from my personal experiences working in crisis sciences and engaging with individuals in social VR, but this area of research is still emerging. It’s important to note that my insights are based on early observations and experiences as a social scientist with a background in crisis intervention, not from an active clinical practice. These reflections should be seen as part of a broader discussion on how we approach mental health in virtual spaces, rather than definitive conclusions or clinical advice.
In conversations I’ve had with high level social VR professionals, we’ve discussed how mental health is often under-addressed in these platforms. In many cases, the focus tends to be on severe mental illness, which can feel overwhelming for those in charge of community building or moderation. This focus often leads to mental health crises being deprioritized because they are seen as too complex to handle. However, I believe the real opportunity lies in using these platforms to foster emotional wellness before things escalate, creating supportive environments where people can feel safe and connected.
That said, it’s crucial to be cautious when presenting solutions like crisis lines (e.g., 988). While these services are valuable, not everyone has a positive experience when reaching out. I would hesitate to say that calling 988 or similar services is ‘the answer’ to suicidality, but it is one of many resources available. It’s important to frame these options as part of a broader support system rather than the definitive solution. If you or someone you know is struggling, I encourage you to reach out for help, but also recognize that support systems need to be holistic and adaptable.
We are still learning about the effects of VR on mental health, and my observations are based on early insights from my work and ongoing conversations with VR professionals. This field is evolving, and I encourage psychologists and mental health experts to explore this emerging space to better understand the unique challenges and opportunities it presents.
In our survey of 63 community builders in social VR, mental health was identified as their top priority, even more so than the survival of their communities. This speaks to a deeper need for mental health support in these spaces—an acknowledgment that there are significant challenges that need addressing. If we are to create sustainable and inclusive VR spaces, addressing mental health needs to be central to that mission.
Years ago, I wrote about taking a call on a suicide hotline from a man who opened with, ‘I need to talk to someone because I am having thoughts of organizing my closet by color!’ This conversation led me to a deeper understanding of how suicidal thoughts serve as signals that something in our lives is out of balance.
While I believe these insights can be helpful in fostering mental wellness in VR, they are not meant to replace professional mental health care. If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, I encourage seeking support from trained professionals. My hope is that by continuing to explore the intersection of VR and mental health, we can create virtual spaces that not only connect us but also support our emotional well-being.
We've had issues with trolling for a while, social VR. How do you recommend social VR users, especially the newer ones, and really all social VR users, how do you recommend that we handle that?
Well, two things. Yeah. If you're a new user, it's the same thing as any kind of conflict—boundaries and bridges. The thing that trolls are taking from you is your peace and your sense of safety. To reestablish your sense of safety, these different applications are going to teach you to block and report. That is punitive justice. Punitive justice has been well-proven not to restore a sense of safety by doing that. But it’s a very primitive, primal idea of how we can feel safe again.
Safety is not a place. It is a practice. And to genuinely restore a feeling of safety, one must be curious. Curiosity does not exist when you're in fear and survival. So, it’s the hardest thing to do, and it must be done with intention and ideally with allyship. But the number one simplest antidote for everybody in here to understand how to wrangle and reverse trolling is curiosity. It is the last thing these people are looking for, and it is the number one thing that they need. And if it is done with allyship and as a group, it is incredibly powerful and effective.
Curiosity does not mean being hungry, necessarily. If I’m hungry to know who you are, then I’m going to dox you, I’m going to stalk you. Curiosity is trying to learn something from the pain that you are inflicting on me. One of the things I might learn, if you’re trying to take my identity away, is how you came to this conclusion that this is the best way to get your needs met.
What is the logic inside people when they’re trolling? If I can do that from a place of non-judgment, just being like, No, really, what are you going for right now?—that repels trolls like nothing else. Because they don’t want to know the answer to that. But sometimes, they might, and they’ll sit there and think about it for a bit. They do want attention. It doesn’t mean they don’t need it. How they’re trying to get the attention is where the misunderstanding is, and they are confused about it too.
If they are targeting you for a marginalized identity, that’s when I lean into the boundary even more. It is not your job to fix these people. It is not your job to help them heal. You get to set that boundary clearly, without any emotional energy on your part—just, Nope. You don’t get to target me about something I get targeted for in other places.
If they’re targeting you, ideally by misunderstanding what your marginalized identity is—like a lot of trolls, for some reason, decided that I was trans. That happened multiple times. If they really pressed me for an answer, My answer back was, Thank you so much for seeing that about me. I’m going to give you an answer that probably won’t feel good, but I’m going to go with: let’s allow for the possibility that I am trans and I am not. That was my answer to them. Mostly, that just settled them way the f**k down because they’d never heard anything like that in their life.
How could somebody be excited when I’m about to attack them on their transness and say, Yep, you got me, and Nope, I’m not.? That kills the equation in their minds of what the hunt is. So if you’re being targeted for something that isn’t a bruised point for you, lean in there, own it curiously and see what happens. And then I would say to the community leaders and the people actually trying to grow stable communities: Don’t see trolling as an identity state. See it as a temporary moment of insanity and pain, and do your best to funnel that energy so it can come back around and try differently with the group. Exile just exponentially repels the violence for somebody else to deal with.
The idea, just like with horses and other animals that sometimes engage in violent ways, is you send them out, but you send them around. You send them on a quest. You send them on a journey to bring something back to the group that will help heal everybody better. And so, even if they do not have a sense of purpose, you are giving them a sense of purpose and a re-entrance—with qualifications, with conditions. The top way I dealt with trolls here is that I brought them to a door I had in all of our community worlds called “Dragon”, and I would invite them by saying “Would you like to go get eaten by a dragon?” and most people immediately clicked on the door, and they weren’t disappointed. It's a 2-3 minute world, but at the bottom of the dragon, you have a range of doors that go to more child-playful friendly worlds. They also can go to the peaceful world that teaches about types of trolling.
I noticed that you have a study called The Troll Project and felt its positive potential after you mentioned it to me. Can you tell me more about your journey with that and where it is now?
I’ve mostly been doing interviews in VRChat because the camera system in here is the best of any social VR app. I also recognized that I’m now in a community system that has hundreds of thousands to millions of people, as far as those who have cumulatively signed into the VRChat application. It felt like the only way to really be taken seriously in this community system–not that that was the goal of the Troll Project–was to build something. I realized that a community like this, who has been so rejected and lost by the rest of the world, needed someone to deeply listen to them. At first, with the troll project, I was just curious, because I noticed something different in group behavior than I had ever seen before. A group of friends trolling each other, but finding affection and safety in that. But, after I hit record for the first time, and many times since, it became something more, where I found curiosity in this really dark place of public relationship carnage, when everyone else just turns it off or blocks and bans.
As a social scientist, I realized that I could offer a lens here that can maybe help us all find some new energy in a place where we feel just a lot of guilt and numbness. So that was the beginning of this rebirth for me in my own inner darkness. Then, eventually as I talked to the trolls, I started to talk to the ex-trolls. As I talked to the ex-trolls, I started talking to the community leaders and then I started talking to the world builders. I started to feel more and more self-conscious and more worried about exposing these people that were very far away from trolling to the people who are going to be coming to the troll project website because they are still trolling. So that nervousness started to slow down the production because there were so many layers of trying to figure out if my interviewee could handle the exposure, and how do I de-identify their interview as much as possible without losing the essence of it?
Then enters CuriousKibble on the Troll Project YouTube channel saying “Hey, can I talk to you? What is this?” That was the bridge into starting BridgeMakers. In meeting this curious community leader, I realized that I had been looking at the vacuum between community–trolling which reflected a larger absence of organized, conscious community leadership systems.
So with CuriousKibble, I've found a community leader who is singing a song that I've never heard in any part of social VR. Not only about how to cure trolling, but how to make healthy communities. Why would I keep focusing my energy on the Troll Project when I've found a viable leader that's actually all the things? Not only dreaming of making a difference but actually having the experience of being in other community systems in social VR. He then joined a community that was languishing and dying and, after becoming a co-owner, he's helping turn it healthy and thriving.
Here is a video with an example of BridgeMakers featuring Curious Kibble:
When I was interviewing trolls, the last thing I always asked them was, “If a troll lives under a bridge, what’s on the other side of the bridge? I got so many interesting answers to this question! To be honest, I didn’t know the answer myself, it just came to me when thinking about the mythos of trolls being the dirty ugly creatures that live in the shadow and sometimes keep people from crossing bridges. In a way, all the answers I learned to this question became my bridge to making BridgeMakers. I met more and more ex-trolls, moderators, and leaders, who were willing to have uncomfortable conversations about the “elephants” or trolls in the room that were making us all uncomfortable. Now I am focusing my energy on helping upskill community builders who are working to change the culture in social VR. We are also supporting a small new initiative within it called “Heart Ninjas” where people who have never trolled, or who have decided to leave trolling behind, have a strikingly magnetic effect on trolls. I am bringing them together to compare notes on why that is. Why do trolls want to be their friends? It’s uncanny how similar they are. I feel like it’s one of the most astounding things I’ve ever found. At first I called them troll whisperers, but eventually I realized that this could be experienced as demeaning to trolls. So, I switched the name to heart ninjas. These people have an amazing gift of moving past the interpersonal assaults of trolls, like Neo in The Matrix dodging the bullets, and in a relatively short amount of time winning their hearts. Some of them have recorded videos of doing this and sent them to me. Basically, they go out to a public instance and find some trolls, and within minutes, the people who are using every trolling trick in the book at them, are talking with them like normal community–sharing about their lives, their irritations, their hopes, and asking them questions about themselves like they are both having a beer together at their local pub. It’s thrilling to capture this on film, like photographing a unicorn in the forest. I also don’t think it’s rocket science, I believe it’s heart science. The very first video I published for the Troll project is of Buddy and Mist. Buddy was about to start trolling for the first time. Mist was looking for a new friend.
This is the foundation of BridgeMakers. The Troll Project is about what’s under the broken bridge. BridgeMakers is about rebuilding the bridge better, so that it can handle everyone trying to get to the other side, even the trolls. I think this has been said by someone else first, and much better than me, but when you boil it all down, I believe that nobody belongs until everyone belongs. This is true in physical reality, and I believe even more so in the metaverse. So, I’m here to help us belong better together. We’re going to mess up. I mess up constantly. But then we’re going to get better, and that’s what I’m doing now. Trying to get better.