An open letter to the word immersive

Immersive. My friend. I’m sorry you haven’t heard from me in a while. It’s not that I’ve been busy, I’ve just been drowning in two dimensional virtual hellscapes void of any fervor for the best part of 18 months so haven’t had the chance to drop in.

But this isn’t about me. It’s about you. I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. Hey, do you remember that time out in the dark Arabian desert when we forced terrified journalists into a live battlefield? Ha, they were so scared. Simulating a merciless attack on our training base using surround sound, smoke bombs, strobes, unnecessarily aggressive actors, and live paintball ammunition? That was you at your best, wasn’t it?

I know your life changed in the years leading up to 2020 and I’m glad you had your time in the spotlight. Supper clubs, pop-ups, theatres, museum installations. You really had it great there for a while. But I’m worried about you now. Your name and what you stand for is being propped up against things that are just not you.

I know that you know that walking around an exhibition stand and getting a free skinny latte is not you.

I know that you know that looking at an AR effect on a phone is not you.

One of your closest friends, Secret Cinema, said that their Häagen-Dazs thing was you. People watched a film on their sofa. Eating ice-cream. They used you like a disposable mask worn under the nose, and for what? Movie night with a housemate and his farting cockapoo?

The Mentor’s | Investor’s | Speaker’s | Dreamer’s and Innovator’s on LinkedIn used your name to describe that swirly shop window in Zara. I’m so, so sorry.

I even witnessed the cool kids of creative experiences label an interactive browser extension as…it’s so hard to write this…‘a fully immersive online experience’. An extension. On your browser. There are no words.

I had to take a moment to think long and hard about what you really mean to make sure that my despair wasn’t caused by my denseness.

Immersive. All encompassing, all senses engaged, surrounded, consumed. Visually, audibly, emotionally touched.

Sensational. Like blindfolded orgies in underground German techno bunkers (allegedly). Like the baby still cocooned in the mother’s warm womb. Candles and Kenny G whilst having a bath or camping in the wild with just your senses and the stars. Suffocating in a vat of pig slurry.

That’s you. That’s the immersive I know.

You’re being used now. You’re being whored out and not in an orgastisch sort of way.

I want you to know that I am here for you. I will do what I can to help you. But you must help yourself.

Tell that journalist to just stop it. Let that agency know it is not physically possible to have an immersive experience on Hopin (other platforms are sadly available). Point them in the direction of the Survival Billboard contestants to get a real definition of what it means to be you. Get them to hang out with Dorothy Di Stefano for a day. Take them to that bunker, you know the one.

My only hope is that our coerced social hibernation mandates are soon completely lifted and our need for even more engulfing and escapist experiences intensifies and you get back to your rousing roots.

Yes, there will still be giant things floating down the Thames. Yes, there will still be scallop based canapés at networking events you do not want to be at. Yes, people from Social Chain will still be asking for your thoughts every sodding day even though they do not give a second thought to your thoughts that they asked for. But clichés, buzzwords and BS aside…we need you, immersive.

Reclaim your name. And come back to us.

Yours in heightened sensory arousal,

Oliver