Latest news with #O'Rourke's
WIRED
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- WIRED
60-Hour Dance Sessions, Simulated Sex, and Ketamine: Inside the World of Hardcore VR Ravers
May 5, 2025 7:00 AM VR Clubbing has exploded since Covid-19 lockdowns, with enthusiasts doing drugs and finding friends and love in an inclusive environment. But some say the convenience is making it harder to control their vices. Photo-Illustration:It was one of O'Rourke's first times doing drugs, but he didn't hold back. Armed with cannabis edibles, cocaine, ketamine, and booze he partied for nearly 12 nights consecutively last August, during which time he claims to have raved for 60 hours straight—all without ever leaving his apartment. (He did take bathroom breaks and managed to eat a steak.) In the last 18 months, the 38-year-old IT worker from Dublin, who did not want his first name used due to privacy reasons, has partied on virtual reality platform VRChat every weekend, often staying up until 8 am, suited up in VR goggles and a full set of motion trackers. 'There's a lot of weird shit going on and it can be hard to adjust, but if you do it's magical,' he tells WIRED. ' If you're not able to self-moderate and police yourself, it's endless. You're not going to win, you're not going to see the end of the party.' O'Rourke is one of many who may struggle with the fantastical, escapist allure of having access to a nearly non-stop wild metaverse party from the comfort of their own homes. Especially when he normally doesn't have plans with friends in the real world. Before Covid-19 lockdowns, there had barely ever been more than 20,000 concurrent users on VRChat—but its popularity has since exploded. More than 130,000 people locked into VRChat on New Year's Day this year, according to a VR culture blog, and there are dozens of weekly VR parties thanks to organizers across the US, Europe and Asia. Once inside the VRChat metaverse, users—who describe it to WIRED as an immersive, futuristic utopia—can choose which 'maps,' or parties, they wish to explore in the form of their avatars. VR raving has grown exponentially in the last few years. Photograph: @SushiFerret And traditional clubs in the US and the UK are closing at an alarming rate— casualties of rising costs, lower profits, and, in places, onerous regulations around noise levels, security requirements and closing times. The infinite amount of space available on VR, plus the lack of regulation, allows creators to blissfully ignore the economic pressures that limit nightlife in many places today. VR venues don't charge cover, so the main cost is VR hardware, which can exceed $5,000 with a high quality gaming PC and full body tracking devices, although a simpler set-up only with a Meta Quest headset can be procured for as little as $350. There are, however, often long lines to get into the most popular virtual club nights, since they are all capped to 80 people each due to the limits of the software on the VRChat platform, which is available through host Steam. WIRED spoke to 12 people who are engrossed in the scene, from trans people who feel safer partying in VR to introverts and seniors who find it more welcoming. It's even spawning underground VR sex and drug subcultures, with erotic club nights and venues meant to mimic the effect of psychedelics; O'Rourke and other enthusiasts say they've clocked up drug-fueled marathon dance sessions all without many of the stressors of traditional club nights. 'Because of the headset, you don't realize how drunk you are till you take it off.' O'Rourke, an introvert who is self-conscious about his 5-foot-4 height, co-runs a party called Euro-Corp, which resembles a traditional club space, with a narrow, wooden-looking dancefloor and a DJ booth overlooking it all. He says he is putting in so many hours—almost 1,800 at the time of writing—because he feels now is the 'high water mark moment' for the scene. 'When people look back in 10 or 20 years, they'll say now was its peak. That's why I'm partying so hard.' But he admits he overdoes it sometimes. 'I accidentally did a heroic dose [of mushrooms] and it was a bit of a mess,' he says of the March 2024 trip during which he could not distinguish between his hallucinations and the VR world. 'I haven't taken shrooms since because it was a bit heavy.' Since then, he's decided ketamine 'synergizes most with VR' because it enhance the levels of immersion to render the virtual reality more real. Others, like Heelix, a 61-year-old VR DJ from Berlin who has spent nearly 5,000 hours—the equivalent of 200 days— in VR, struggle to control their drinking. 'I think it's a little bit dangerous,' he says. 'I've seen people going overboard and [their avatars] suddenly disappearing.' Another VR party promoter says: 'Because of the headset, you don't realize how drunk you are till you take it off.' One partier says he's has had friends who have needed their stomachs to be pumped after marathon drinking sessions on VRChat. But socially awkward individuals, homebodies, and LGBT people tell WIRED that VR raves are secure and surreal spaces where, through their avatars, folks can metamorphose into whatever form they wish. 'Go listen to your local people and then come to any random club in VR, you're going to be shocked that your local DJs suck ass.' Ru, a trans woman from rural Ohio who works as a hospice nurse, says VRChat provides her a safer environment than she might find in real life. 'I get sexually assaulted far less often,' says Ru, 48, who didn't want to use her real name for professional reasons. 'I'm a trans woman, and I live in the middle of a red state. Sometimes you don't want to go to that local place and deal with all of that shit.' Plus, she says that the music that DJs on VRChat play is just better than at the clubs in Ohio she has been to. 'The music is unbelievable,' she says. 'Go listen to your local people and then come to any random club in VR, you're going to be shocked that your local DJs suck ass.' Ru's virtual club, Kaleidosky, looks like the inside of a shape-shifting kaleidoscope, bending the laws of physics with all the fractal visions of a DMT trip. Her VR success as a DJ has even led her to play physical shows in Japan, although she was not the headliner. 'My life has been expanded in ways that I can hardly relate to you,' she says, 'all because of VR and how it brings all these different, immensely creative people together.' Luna, a VR raver from the Netherlands, was suffering from poor mental health, she was unemployed and felt socially alienated when she first went on VRChat at the age of 19 in 2022. 'I was really depressed,' she recalls. 'I didn't have work, I didn't have real friends, I was stuck at home.' But, like many before her, discovering raving changed everything. 'It was like a way to experience new things, new worlds,' she says. 'I loved it instantly.' She has partied so hard from her living room, her neighbors have complained. 'I can dance quite wildly.' Just like she would in the physical world, Luna developed an entire group of friends from VR rave encounters. They now pre-drink together before heading out at the weekends in VR, and sometimes they even take MDMA as a group, from their individual silos. Her first trip came in her first few months VR raving, when a friend of hers in Australia said she was going to take the euphoria-inducing drug, and fellow raver Benji, who also lives in the Netherlands, offered to mail a dose of a legal version of MDMA to her house. Later, at an in-person rave organized by a VR club, she connected with Benji; they've now been a couple for two and a half years, and he now goes on VR far less. But others get hooked on the platform's rave scene, even though the experience cannot fully replicate the neurochemical correlates of a real rave, says neuroscientist Dr Maria Balaet, from Imperial College London. Prolonged drug use in VR could also amplify sensory overload and cognitive fatigue, raising the risk of dissociation and having a bad trip, she warns. 'Having a bad trip in VR is probably worse than a bad trip outside of VR because once one comes out of the VR environment their body and mind needs to re-adjust to the world too, and that is taxing in addition to the bad trip itself.' She adds that drug use in VR could bring about a 'false outward experience' in which an individual has an inner experience in an artificially designed context. 'I am not sure how long one can stay in this state without feeling disconnected or disoriented,' Balaet cautions. Some VR ravers say they've found real-life partners and friends through virtual partying. Photograph: @ayase_ Benji and Luna first connected romantically in person, but sometimes one thing can lead to another on VRChat — with or without drugs. Through the use of VR rooms and custom avatars with adult capabilities, clothing can be removed to and enable certain 'gestures' to be performed to simulate sex. The explicit phenomenon, tucked away in private metaverse spaces, has spawned whole categories of pornographic videos on adult websites, where VR users record themselves having sex. 'When people engage in ERP [erotic role-play], they typically pick out an avatar to dress the part,' according to an explainer video on how people 'do it' in VRChat. 'There's special physics for body parts that can be added to avatars, as well as 'collision', so that other users can interact with them.' This is against VRChat's terms of service that prohibit creating pornographic content, and these sorts of avatars should be swiftly banned if they are active in a public world. Heelix's avatar is a young female anime character, and he describes how loneliness led him to find solace in VR, where he plays shows as a DJ. 'All of my friends are old and they don't go clubbing anymore,' he says. On the occasions he has gone out by himself he has felt conscious of his greying hair and growing belly. 'But here in VR I know a lot of people,' he says. 'It's much easier.' Plus, 'the way home is very short' and en route he can even stop by places like one of VRChat's sex-positive clubs, PSHQ—originally known as Pussy Squad Headquarters—where as many as 20 lap dancers can be tipped during exotic dance nights, and attendees can slope off to a 'motel' area for what the club describes as 'NSFW activities'. Some erotic dancers, like Lichbait, have even developed popular online personas and are profiting from subscriptions, like a VR OnlyFans. PSHQ, according to its creator DeityAnubis, who did not want to be named for privacy reasons, is 'a sexually positive adult space with a focus on music. The music, the dancing, the lighting, the atmosphere, the sense of community, the LGBTQ safe space, those are the important parts of PSHQ and make us what we are.' In January, VRChat introduced age verification on the platform to ensure children were not accessing certain adult spaces, after a BBC investigation found children were able to enter VR strip clubs and could be cajoled into performing virtual sex acts. Zeus Tipado, a PhD candidate researching neuroscience at the University of Maastricht, describes VR as a mammoth social experiment, but it's one that he has increasing concerns over. Some frequent users get progressively less interested in base reality, to a far greater extent than traditional gamers, he warns. The site's anonymity also provides cover for racist or bigoted behaviour. During one of his forays into VRChat, Tipado says he was part of a group invited into a man's apartment. 'It was a vibey apartment,' Tipado recalls. 'Everyone was watching Power Rangers, I found a nice place to sit down on the sofa. And then this guy comes up in front of everybody and tells people to take off their clothes.' Nobody took off their virtual clothes and they were soon kicked out of his apartment for failing to comply with the request. User safety is a top priority, a VRChat spokesperson tells WIRED, and the platform has provided users with a number of tools to protect themselves, such as making it easy to block and report others. 'When our trust and safety team receives a report, they have the ability to use metadata and logs to track down and ban problematic users,' they said. While many might assume that all VR users are on a quest to escape reality, sometimes the parties act as a gateway to live events. Promoter James Campbell, who runs the popular Shelter map, has held events in New York, San Diego and Los Angeles playing dubstep, bass and other electronic music genres to bring VR ravers together. At Shelter's first party, in New York, attended by more than 250 people in May 2022 at the now-closed VRWorld in Midtown Manhattan, he says countless people came up to him and said it was their first ever actual rave, telling him: 'I didn't think I'd ever have the confidence to come to a show.'
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Beto O'Rourke to host Wichita Falls town hall on state, federal issues
WICHITA FALLS (KFDX/KJTL) — Former United States Representative Beto O'Rourke will host a Congressional and State Representative Town Hall Meeting at the Ray Clymer Exhibit Hall on Saturday. The doors will open at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 12, and the event will begin at 2 p.m. This is a chance for Texas to ask questions about state and federal issues and discuss America's future. A release from Powered by People, O'Rourke's voter registration and mobilization group made up of volunteers across the state, said that with so many important issues in the news, O'Rourke has been on the road to hear directly from fellow Texans and organize on the ground. This event is free and open to the public, but Powered by People asks that anyone planning to attend RSVP online. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
22-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Sanatorium' Visits a Brutalist Ex-Soviet Wellness Resort in Ukraine Offering an 'Oasis of Respite'
CPH:DOX, the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, kicked off on Friday with a mix of docs from around the globe about a broad selection of topics in line with the fest's reputation among attendees. A colossal ex-Soviet wellness center in Odesa, Ukraine is one of the locations and topics getting the Copenhagen spotlight this year, thanks to Sanatorium, the new observational doc from Irish filmmaker Gar O'Rourke (series Secrets of a Murder Detective With Steve Keogh). It world premieres at Copenhagen on Monday, with additional screenings over the course of the following days. More from The Hollywood Reporter Peruvian Drama 'Reinas' Wins Swiss Film Awards Alicia Vikander on Her Go-For-Broke 'The Assessment' Role and 'Ex Machina' at 10 Why 'Wolf Hall' Sequel 'The Mirror and the Light' Almost Didn't Happen 'Both patients and staff search for health, happiness, and love while the [Russia-started] war echoes through the lime green corridors' of Kuyalnyk Sanatorium, notes a film synopsis. 'Every summer, people of all ages arrive in their thousands at a huge ex-Soviet treatment center in Odesa on the southern coast of Ukraine. A time capsule from the '70s, built in the brutalist style of the era, it still offers therapeutic treatments from the glory days of the Soviet Union. The main attraction is the mysterious mud which is believed to cure infertility, chronic ailments, and a myriad of other health problems.' But beyond the physical health goals, many guests are really searching for happiness and love above all else, Sanatorium shows as O'Rourke and the camera of cinematographer Denys Melnyk follow them to tell their stories. As such, the doc is also a declaration of love for the Ukrainian people, their spirit, and their resilience. Watch a trailer for Sanatorium, which is O'Rourke's debut feature doc and for which MetFilm Sales is handling sales, below. O'Rourke's relationship with Ukraine began in 2018 and 2019 when he made his first film there, the short doc Kachalka, described as 'a journey into the heart of what is widely considered the world's most hardcore gym – Kyiv's enormous open-air 'Kachalka' gym.' Recalls the filmmaker: 'It was about this incredible, bizarre outdoor gym in the middle of Kyiv. Ukrainians used to go there to work out. And it was around that time I became really interested in what you might call Ukraine's very unique approach and philosophy towards health and well-being. They have a unique sensibility towards this, I feel. And then a Ukrainian friend introduced me to the wonderful world of Soviet-era sanatoriums.' These are about more than physical health though. 'The ethos of these sanatoriums was very much about healing, self-reflection and, in an abstract way, this idea of rebirth,' O'Rourke explains. In 2021, he first visited Kuyalnyk and, he tells THR, 'I pretty much fell in love with the place after a week of mud baths, and hydro massages, electro massages, and salt pool therapies.' He adds: 'It wasn't so much the treatments that I fell in love with. It was the atmosphere of this sanatorium. And it was really getting to know the staff and the guests who were going there, and the variety of reasons why people were going there.' The idea for the doc was born. 'But less than a year after my first trip there the Russian invasion happened in February 2022, so that changed everything,' O'Rourke recalls. 'For a long time, we thought this sanatorium would not open again, let alone us getting a chance to make a film there during a war. But in June of 2023, the sanatorium decided 'we believe that Ukrainians need this place more than ever.' Because it's not just a place where people take a holiday and relax, but it's almost a place of respite for people who are in the war at the moment.' The visual language and style of the doc O'Rourke and his team, including Melnyk and editor John Murphy, put together allow viewers to time travel, or 'time warp,' as the director puts it, a bit. 'Within the cinematography of the film, the intention was to try and capture a sense of utopian atmosphere, and draw inspiration from the aesthetics of Soviet-era architecture,' he notes. 'I also took some inspiration from Soviet cinema which influenced certain aspects of the style, such as the slow powerful zooms, the expansive wide locked-off shots, and the symmetry and aesthetic of some of our compositions.' And he used Ukrainian music from the past. 'The film has a really specific soundtrack. The music is very much of the era,' he tells THR. 'It's very much of the '60s, '70s, '80s. I wanted to lean into as much Ukrainian music that was made at that time as possible, just to really dial in the atmosphere of this film and create something very specific.' The ongoing war is not a focus of the doc but rears its ugly head like a pin threatening to burst the sanatorium bubble when the alarms go off. 'I never set out to make a film about the war in Ukraine and never set out to make a war film,' O'Rourke tells THR. 'But of course, the war is a fabric of every single person's life who lives in Ukraine right now, and I felt that it would be maybe more powerful and more appropriate to keep the war always on the periphy, always just outside the walls of the sanatorium, because it's always there. Because the staff and the guests are trying to have this almost oasis of respite, there's almost a meditative type of rhythm to this place. And I felt this is a place of solace for people. Thank God, this sanatorium hasn't had a direct strike or anything like that, and I hope it never does.' He also lauds and thanks his Ukrainian team for their hard work, skill, and their spirit. 'They're just really happy that there can be a film,' O'Rourke says. 'There are many important stories that need to be told during this war, and I suppose we hope ours is one of those.' And he references such everyday parts of the film as conversations between family and friends and such unexpected portions as a disco scene. 'There's something powerful about seeing a person sing, dance, play, maybe forge a new friendship, have an argument with their friends. That's what we all do,' O'Rourke concludes. 'You're reminded, in a very stark way, that these are just people trying to get on with their lives. Life goes on, even with the war. Life has to go on. And there's something very poignant and powerful about being able to relate to someone that way rather than [the more common news images showing] people whose house is completely destroyed.' Sanatorium will air in the U.K. on the BBC as part of its Storyville doc strand later this year, and O'Rourke hopes it will also be seen in many more countries beyond that. The creative is also already gearing up for his next observational doc, which will tackle overtourism and will be called The Siege of Paradise. 'The logline is: The most beautiful place in the world becomes an epicenter for overtourism when less than 4,000 Italian locals are invaded by more than 4 million tourists,' O'Rourke tells THR. ' Best of The Hollywood Reporter The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked 20 Times the Oscars Got It Wrong The Best Anti-Fascist Films of All Time
BBC News
16-03-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Tyrone have 'fighting chance' of staying up - O'Rourke
Tyrone manager Malachy O'Rourke said that his side have a "fighting chance" of staying in Division One after their 0-25 to 0-19 win against a second victory of the season, O'Rourke's side remain in the relegation places and must avoid defeat against Dublin to have any chance of staying up.O'Rourke was keen to praise his side for getting the job done against an under strengthened Donegal which takes the fight to avoid the drop to the final day."That's all we wanted. We knew when Donegal picked their team that they hadn't picked their full team, and it was a no-win situation for us in many ways," he told BBC Sport NI."We just had to get the two points and that's what we did, just glad to get out of it and that leaves us in with a fighting chance next week hopefully."Tyrone have a better scoring difference than Armagh, who also have five league points, but remain in the relegation positions due to the All-Ireland champions' win over them in round take on already relegated Derry in their last game, who are set to ring the changes after their boss Paddy Tally said their focus was now on preparing for the Ulster Championship.O'Rourke stressed that the Red Hands will focus on getting a result against Dublin in Omagh next weekend rather than worrying about Armagh's game."We'd like to stay in Division One, but if we win next week – and that's a big if – that would mean we have five points out of the last six and that would be a good win to finish the league," he explained."It's an unforgiving division, this year more than ever. If we happen to get seven points and still get relegated, that would be tough. All we can do is concentrate on getting the couple of points."
