Habbo hotel
The main two factors which would prevent one from attending a TWS event seem to be time constraints and the distance one must travel to the café location. I wanted to create an online space which mimicked the offline experience of visiting a café with strangers. I decided on Habbo Hotel as a platform, in which I would construct a digital room from which to chair my own version of a TWS teatime. I purchased a builder’s membership on Habbo and spent the next 4 hours constructing a space. Of course, since the space did not have to physically exist in London or let alone be confined by realist expectations, I created a more imaginative environment, a quasi-beach club with a little modern tea room. An ideal space of sorts, where one could relax and enjoy a conversation through the virtual avatars of the platform. However, it soon became clear that it was very difficult to entice anyone to come into the room, let alone form a group of strangers. I managed to show the room to a fellow anthropologist on my course and persuaded one Habbo member to visit, but no one else entered after that. The main demographic of Habbo hotel which I encountered appeared to be teenagers, with little interest in participating in my teatime, and so eventually I discarded this project. The anonymity of an online platform such as Habbo hindered the success of my venture, but perhaps also the fact that the platform itself was a space where in every room conversations between strangers occur; I did not bring anything new. I had intended the room to be made available to visitors of this website, however I have not renewed my builder’s membership, which has since expired, so my room remains locked to the public, but I have included some screenshots of the room and my attempts to organise a teatime (my avatar is AnthropologyFab).