Though learning about it last week, I continue to be obsessed with Monument, a VRChat-based world where tens of thousands of players (so far) have volunteered to build a massive Babel-like tower in real time, brick-by-brick, vaulting incrementally into the sky. (World's web page here.)
Igbar Von Squid was so impressed, he created the fairly hilarious recruitment video above, seeking other players to help with the collective labor. When he first discovered it on social media, Igbar fell in love it with on an existential level:
"There is no practical point to building the Monument," as he puts it, "no reward, and not even an end goal. In fact it only gets more difficult the taller it gets! And yet, at any given time of day there are always several hundred people working on it for no other reason than because they simply feel like it.
"It calls to mind the ending line of Camus' famous essay, 'The Myth of Sisyphus': 'The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy'."
Other VRChat players who join him on the tower seem to feel the same way:
"Those who are actually working on the Monument tend to be very quiet. In a lot of cases they simply join the world, immediately understand the concept, and get straight to work without saying a thing. By VRChat standards, this is very strange and unexpected. But it's as if everyone agrees to work together without even having to share a word."
Monument is the invention of Sylan Troh, who I'm still trying to talk to. But Igbar already has, in-world:
"We didn't speak much, but I did ask her if the Monument has an actual end to it. Her answer was that it would take 10 years of constant work to actually reach the limit of the Monument."
However, the ten year limit doesn't seem to be her end goal:
"It sounded like this wasn't an intentional choice but rather a limit of Unity/VRChat."
In the meantime, I'm still searching for the creator.
Video courtesy IgbarVonSquid
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Wagner James Au / New World Notes 
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