A Grieving Mother Interacted with the Virtual Reality Version of Her Deceased 7-Year-Old on TV and There Are No Words
Source - Last week, a Korean TV special called Meeting You aired which focused on a family’s loss of their 7-year-old daughter. And in an unsettling finale, the program attempted to reunite the girl with her mother using a virtual reality recreation, complete with audio.
You can see it below. Not only was the girl fully replicated in 3D, able to move around and interact, but the mother was given touch-sensitive gloves to accompany her VR headset, and she was able to walk around a limited green-screen set.
What fresh hell is this? It's proof positive that the world has gone blind to itself.
Behold, the dystopian near future Sci Fi has been warning us about for decades is upon us. We've blurred the line between reality and virtual reality. And turned the unimaginable pain and loss of a grieving mother into a TV segment. It's just too much to process.
Even if you don't have children of your own, you should be able to comprehend the anguish at the mere thought of losing a child. Just having the idea of your child in danger cross your mind will affect a parent on an instinctual, gut level. It's stronger than the need for self-preservation. And you wouldn't hesitate to lay down your life to protect your child. So I'm sure that any mother who lost a daughter would give anything to get to spend one more minute with her. Even in a simulation. That's the natural, human reaction. But just because we can do a thing doesn't mean we should.
How could this possibly be good for this woman? I'm no psychologist but I don't think you have to be to understand how horrible this is. All you need is to be a student of human nature to realize how damaging this is. It has to be. You're giving a woman living in agony a series of 1s and 0s that vaguely resemble a person and telling her broken heart it's her deceased daughter. How can that not simply make the pain of her loss even worse once that VR headset and those gloves come off?
Worse yet, how to you put this on TV? Maybe - just maybe - if this was in a controlled environment and she got all sorts of counseling before, during and after, it could be acceptable. But slapping this on TV between ads for Hyundai and "Parasite" like it's some plot device from "Young Sheldon" is unspeakably cruel.
But like I said, that futuristic hellscape we've been introduced to in shows like "Black Mirror" (the one where Hayley Atwell gets an android version of her dead husband) has arrived. And I worry that this nightmare is only just beginning. Pray for this mom. I'm afraid it's all we can do.