Gorillaz do Habbo

Shame on me. I hardly ever mention Habbo.Well they’ve only racked up 30million unique accounts over the years – what’s to say eh?

But o o OOO! Now there’s a k00l post-britpop band related story, now I take notice – talk about jumping on the band wagon after the stable door has been bolted.

So, via Alice I read that Gorillaz are visiting the US Habbo Hotel next week (edit 22 Aug 05: in fact this is part of a virtual world tour starting today in the Japanese Habbo at 5pm

Tokyo

time). Initial reaction: Whoa – how meta is THAT!

For anyone out there that does not know, Gorillaz are a popular beat combo m’lord, who are the cartoon children of Damon Albarn (of Blur fame) and Jamie Hewlett (of Tank Girl fame).

And yes I love the idea of the Gorillaz, I also happen to like some of the music, but that’s not important right now. To me Albarn & Hewlett’s creation is the perfect commentary on not only pop culture but many of the issues of reality and authenticity that we discuss here on TerraNova. Now, I know manufacturing a pop group is not a new idea, Motown was built on it, then there’s the Monkeys, heck there was probably some all star line up for Die Zauberflöte at some point, but Gorillaz seems to take it that step further - it's Baudrillard with a back beat.

I mean, can you be a fan of Gorrilaz? Is that not just the same as being a fan of Albarn & Hewlett? What is value anyway? I Hesperus you say Phosphorus. Eeek, paging Prof Ludlow (if you find all this interesting and have not read From Sherlock and Buffy to Klingon and Norrathian Platinum Pieces: Pretense, Contextalism, and the Myth of Fiction (.rtf), you really should).

Plus, what’s really neat about this event is that it’s been done in Habbo styleee. It’s a conjoining of magic circles if you will. The main event is Gorillaz doing a Q&A in-world. But in addition there is a part promo / part immersion competition where Habbo residents have to pic a Gorilla and decorate a room for them, the prise is that the Gorilla in question will visit the room.

And lastly for the budding metaphysicsts out there: Question – are the real Gorillaz visiting Habbo? 

Sub question (exta 10 marks, attempt only if you have time): would starting a band in Second Life be kOOler, if so, by exactly how much?

Comments

[Torley Wong/Torley Torgeson]

Ook ook. :) Nice to see the Gorillaz have gone all isometric and schtuff. I'd like to see a music video of "Dirty Harry" done in there, LOL.

Ever seen U2 in SL? Their avatars, and well, way of textual speaking are pretty convincing. I suppose that's a fair parallel to G-in-H. Altho, I think it's only a matter of time before SL gets its own homegrown bands. (/me remembers the Linden band-in-a-box kit available at Stillman.)

[Peter Ludlow]

wow, this is giving me a headache.

[Elle Pollack]

Bands in Second Life are definately way cooler...especialy when the musicians are playing from opposite ends of the country.

Eeep! It's a Torley! *gives chase with a watermellon-colored net*.

[PocketCalculator]

The UK band "Steadman" played a concert in There a few years ago..

%Pocket

[ren]

>The UK band "Steadman" played a concert in There a few years ago..

Blimey. Problem is, who's heard of Steadman?
But interesting that There got there first.

And with the SL stuff, yes there are live things, but I was meaning a band starting in SL that got some fame.

[Quine Mondrian]

If anyone wants to start a band, look me up.

[Sulka]

The band is not only hitting the US Habbo - they're on a world tour. :) Google for news on Gorillaz in Habbo and you'll find out the band starts the tour in Japan and goes through 12 countries total.

So yes, some bands have thrown a virtual gig, but is this the first virtual world tour?

[magicback]

So what if the four members of Gorillaz decided to form a "virtual" band called Monkez in both Habblo and SL concurrently?

[Joel]

Wait, this is happening in Habbo Hotel? That isn't even a Virtual World, is it? As for bands in Second Life, you'd get far better results in There.

I actually hope to see more things like Steadman in There. There does have more potential, that is why I left Second Life to move into There in the first place.

However, I can't believe Habbo Hotel is doing something like this! It isn't even a Virtual World, its a chat room with purttttty graphics.

[Michael Chui]

Sub question (exta 10 marks, attempt only if you have time): would starting a band in Second Life be kOOler, if so, by exactly how much?

I spy a rehash of Panda Attack v. Penny Arcade.

[Elle Pollack]

Ren, I guess it depends what you mean by fame. Popularity-wise, people like Astrin Few regularly play to packed sims, and by packed, I mean the server is full and cant hold any more avatars (a sim in SL currently tops out around 40-60 AVs...bug Cory who can probably tell you the exact number since he helped write the darn code). So I have no idea how many people would attend the events if this limit weren't present. I can say that a concert held earlier tonight by Wayfinder Wishbringer (leader of SL's Elf Clan and singer of filk songs...not exactly a popular genre) drew 37 people before I gave up trying to fight with my crashy computer in the middle of it.

Now if you mean real-world fame, we're admitidly not there yet. Know any record execs hiding in the grid?

As for "better results in There"...I know plenty of former Thereians but aren't one myself. Maybe, from what I hear, the demographic would be more favorable torward a mainstream band, but according to the latest charts on mmogchart.com, SL outstriped There in subscriber numbers several months back and is growing at a faster rate, so they have the advantage in numbers.

[Joel]

Elle, i'm a former Second Life member. I was a hardcore addict but left because quite frankly, the community was a nightmare and it was so laggy I couldn't move. From experience There members goto Second Life to admire the building tools.

Why they stay... I don't know. I have no regrets once so ever for leaving Second Life. I couldn't stand the sex and the being bombed with scripts every 10 minutes. Second Life may have more members, but my guess is they must be blind.

Bands in There would work better because of the community and servers can handle alot more in There. I'd guess a fleet of 100 vechiles could hover in one area and each hold 5 people and there would be no problem.

Plus voice and Therian radio stations. I may sound hostile towards Second Life, I am bit. I moved on and saw the light and believe There has untapped potential and thats why I stick with it.

In fact There might be getting scripting soon. I'd say Second Life better watch it, There has been developing something... And we have not heard a peep about it, something is going on.

[Chris]

In answer to the ontological question, "are the real Gorillaz visiting Habbo?" the answer must be yes, mustn't it? As a virtual entity, the reality of the Gorrillaz is their virtual existence. The people responsible for creating the look and sound of Gorillaz (Hewlitt, Albarn et al) are merely the framework which causes Gorillaz to exist (virtually), much as the cells of my body are the framework which causes me to exist (biologically).

The only way the question becomes false is if one takes 'real' to mean "existing in etic reality", rather than meaning "authentic". And then we are back to the brains-in-jars argument - is anything demonstrably 'real'?

[Peter Ludlow]

Another answer might be that is no "real" group Gorillaz. It's only a virtual group. Will that be the real virtual group Gorillaz playing in Habbo? I don't see why it wouldn't be. Is a virtual group less real than a "real" group?, well it doesn't have the usual physical embodiment, but you might not be impressed by that. I'm not. So I conclude that... something or other.

[monkeysan]

chris>In answer to the ontological question, "are the real Gorillaz visiting Habbo?" the answer must be yes, mustn't it?

no.

chris>The people responsible for creating the look and sound of Gorillaz (Hewlitt, Albarn et al) are merely the framework which causes Gorillaz to exist (virtually), much as the cells of my body are the framework which causes me to exist (biologically).

That analogy doesn't work. For one thing, your cells and you are the same thing; 'you' *are* your cells and they are you. The same is not true of the relationship between Alburn, Hewlitt, et al. and Gorillaz. For one thing the relationship is not bidrectional.

Anyway, without picking nits, I think you (and) Peter are making a mistake by considering the situation binary--between reality and virtuality.

The Gorillaz are a representation of a band that exists in some possible world--a world conceived by people who are residents of the actual world. Such is art.

When the Gorillaz show up in Habbo, they are showing up in another 'possible' world. But the two possible worlds--that of the Gorillaz and that of Habbo Hotel (assuminig you credit it with being a virtual world-like place) are not identical.

So, the Gorillaz in Habbo are Habbo-possible-world representations of the band that exists in a Gorillaz-possible-world as imagined in the actual world by Alburn, et al. It gets confusing, but the point is that virtual/real is not a binary relationship, it is a relationship among possible worlds and the actual world.

Peter>Is a virtual group less real than a "real" group?, well it doesn't have the usual physical embodiment, but you might not be impressed by that. I'm not.

Well, maybe i don't understand what you mean by 'real' and virtual, but if you don't see physical embodiment as a sufficiently robust property to impress upon you its importance in distinguishing among types of 'band', then I'm dumbfounded.

BTW accepting physical embodiment as some important, possibly necessary, property of an 'actual' band, does not require privileging actual bands over possible ones.

I think you are confusing yourself by working with terms--'real' and 'virtual'--that don't withstand the strain of the question you're trying to answer.

--Aaron

[ren reynolds]

First off I hate the use of the world ‘real’ in any serious debate of just about anything virtual as to me it sets up a fallacious dualism. I’m all for an ontologically nuanced view of this stuff.

I used the word I guess in a polemical fashion. The kind of response that I tend towards personally is that of monkeysan above i.e. one that rejects the premise of the question.

With Gorillaz I guess were are really in the realm of the authentic which is interesting in the digital context.

In virtual worlds value appears to be highly contextual. The ludic structure of them imposes a certain type of value; the communal nature enables the accrual of social capital, which is an alternate view of value.

But I feel that there is value within the universe of worlds. Hence a lvl 60 WoW character is kind of up there with a SWG Jedi. So in theory you could trade across (yes yes MUD-DEV 1890).

Gorrilaz are illustrative of this thinking. They exist virtually, so their authenticity seems related to, in fact in virtue of, their virtuality however it is manifest. So people dressed up as Gorillaz and appearing on stage would be inauthentic. Gorillaz in a comic or a cartoon devoted to them seem to be authentic. But Gorillaz in another virtual context seem to be more authentic than the live version but less than a native one.

An interesting side step is the meta-context. So I’m thinking of things like League of Extraordinary Gentleman or Alien vs Predator. There we seem to accept that both fictions can collide just so long as there is an overarching one.

So many-be Warcraft could be a yet to be discovered planet in Star Wars Universe and if so I wonder if Gorillaz would be playing a gig.

[monkeysan]

Ren>So many-be Warcraft could be a yet to be discovered planet in Star Wars Universe and if so I wonder if Gorillaz would be playing a gig.

Exactly! That possible world exists, I just wish there were someone who'd build a simulation of it so I could check the gig out, virtually. =D

--Aaron

[Dr. Cat]

I didn't know Gorillaz were a "made up" band in the way the Monkees were. Now I know. All I knew before was that I'd heard one or two of their songs and really liked it.

I'd say outside academia, the question of whether "they" are "there" to a typical fan would be answered by "If the guys that played the musical instruments and sang on those songs are the ones typing chat messages into Habbo Hotel, then they are there. If they have someone else do the online appearances and pretend to be those guys that played the music, then they are 'not there'."

(Disclaimer: When Lord British did his first online Q&A session on QuantumLink, I typed for him because I was more familiar with the user interface there. But I only typed in what he said, so I'd say he was still "there". Wouldn't you?)

As for this comment:
It isn't even a Virtual World, its a chat room with purttttty graphics.

I'd say that's a definition of what a virtual world is, in many cases, so I guess Habbo Hotel is one too. :) (I certainly hope the difference between being able to hack and slash at monsters and not being able to isn't the dividing line. As for whether 2D vs. 3D is the determining factor, I wouldn't even dignify that with a response. I still think text muds with NO graphics fall into the "virtual worlds" category.)

Dr. Cat> I'd say outside academia, the question of whether "they" are "there" to a typical fan would be answered by "If the guys that played the musical instruments and sang on those songs are the ones typing chat messages into Habbo Hotel, then they are there.

What about members of Gorillaz who don't play instruments or sing? Do they have to be there?

[monkeysan]

Dr. Cat> I'd say outside academia, the question of whether "they" are "there" to a typical fan would be answered by "If the guys that played the musical instruments and sang on those songs are the ones typing chat messages into Habbo Hotel, then they are there.

What about members of Gorillaz who don't play instruments or sing? Do they have to be there?

[ren reynolds]

Dr Cat > I didn't know Gorillaz were a "made up" band in the way the Monkees were. Now I know.

The point I was making is that the question of whether a band is ‘real’ or not is an old issue in popular music. Real bands are those that meet each other maybe at school, maybe through the music press and struggle on to get that first record deal. Fake bands are those designed by record companies who target a market segment, get people that look right (and sometimes sound right) then get a song writing team to create stuff for them. Of course if you into ‘pop’ you might say that the latter is true pop group.

Gorillaz is similar in that the band you see is the intellectual creation of Albarn & Hewlett, the characters are designed, it seems to me, as twisted versions of music archetypes.

But of course Albarn & Hewlett are authentic in that they both took the hard route to get their current status in popular culture.

So the authentic of Gorillaz is moot and I think an intentional commentary on the old pop / rock debate.

[ren reynolds]

Dr. Cat> I'd say outside academia, the question of whether "they" are "there" to a typical fan would be answered by "If the guys that played the musical instruments and sang on those songs are the ones typing chat messages into Habbo Hotel, then they are there.

monkeysan > What about members of Gorillaz who don't play instruments or sing? Do they have to be there?
Murdoc plays base in the band. But what if a whole lot of different session players actually play on the different tracks?

Does Hewlett even count as he just does the art?
Then again, what’s Pink Floyd? Is Roger Waters enough? Is Gilmore enough? I think they had a court case about this and it was found the Gilmore el al were enough of Pink Floyd to be it.

Authenticity is a very fluid notion, it’s funny how much value we put in it.

[Chris Bateman]

Note to self: mustn't comment as 'Chris' as there's at least one other Chris on Terra Nova...

Aaron:

My cells and I are not the same thing in some bidirectional manner, as you appear to suggest. When I have my hair cut, it's just dead hair, but those are my cells on the floor of the barber shop. However, this may show my bias towards viewing self as consciousness - favouring the software self over the hardware/wetware self, if you will. However, this is rather beside the point. :)

Virtual/real not a binary relationship? Can you expand upon this point... Although I am not fond of the use of 'real' to denote permanent features of etic reality, nor of binary logic in ontology, it seems there is a relatively clear threshold to the virtual in the way these terms are conventionally used (I favour Wittgenstein's "the meaning of a word is how it is used"). I'm open to fresh insight!

Ren:

I agree with your analysis that the Gorrilaz are 'authentically virtual', and that people on stage in suits would be 'fake'.

With this in mind, I feel that Hewlett is essential - without Hewlett's visuals/artistic vision, we would be left with something that would feel less authenticly 'Gorrilaz-like'.

The Pink Floyd example is apposite; when bands split up we see the fluidity of the whole notion of a unitary band identity. I feel the identity of a band is generally rooted in the past, however... frozen into our memories at the height of their exposure like flashbulb afterglow. When key members die or split off, we are left with fragentary echoes of what that that band once represented.

[billbob the billboard]

does any one no any good websites that u can acually see wat the goriilaz really look like

[jazmin]

What does the band members really look like?

[Ryan]

In light of the "live" holographic performances by the Gorillaz, I'd really like to see a Second Life band of avatars get signed to tour. No reason the same tech (musion eyeliner3d) couldn't be used to put avatars up on stage.