The Vanishing Audience
Old Chen had worked at the aquarium for thirty years, transforming from a naive young man into a middle-aged man with thinning hair. He was familiar with the habits of every fish, knew which sea turtle liked to daydream in the corner, and which eel loved to hide behind the artificial rocks. Recently, the aquarium had introduced a new batch of sunfish, round creatures that looked adorable but were exceptionally delicate.
The visitors loved them, always crowding in front of the glass tanks, taking photos with their phones. Old Chen was busy feeding the sunfish, changing their water, and observing their mental state every day. However, since the introduction of the new "immersive experience capsules," everything had changed.
The experience capsules resembled giant transparent capsules. Visitors wearing special VR glasses could "immerse" themselves in the underwater world, "interacting" with various marine creatures. This method was both convenient and economical. Most importantly, they no longer had to squeeze into crowded exhibition halls or endure the noisy clamor of children.
The aquarium's visitor traffic dropped sharply, and the exhibition halls became deserted. Old Chen felt a little lost. He believed that real marine life should be observed in reality, not replaced by cold technology. But he soon discovered that the sunfish didn't seem to think the same way.
That day, Old Chen fed the sunfish as usual and found them unusually active. Instead of swimming slowly as they usually did, they were excitedly circling in the tank, occasionally bumping the glass with their plump bodies, as if celebrating something.
Old Chen was initially puzzled, thinking there was a problem with the water quality, but after checking, everything was normal. He observed carefully and noticed a light shining in the sunfish's eyes that he had never seen before. It wasn't the curiosity they showed when facing visitors, but a kind of joy that came from within.
He tried turning off the experience capsules and turning the exhibition hall lights back on, but the sunfish immediately became listless, lazily hiding at the bottom of the tank, as if they had lost all vitality. When Old Chen turned off the lights again and left the exhibition hall empty, the sunfish became excited again.
Old Chen was baffled. He consulted a lot of materials and experts, but could not find a reasonable explanation. He began to suspect whether the sunfish were some special kind of creature that needed absolute solitude rather than human attention.
One day, in the monitoring room of the experience capsules, Old Chen saw an astonishing scene. On the screens, visitors were excitedly screaming in the "virtual underwater world," "battling" with realistic sharks, and "dancing" with whales, but no one noticed that the real marine life in front of them were celebrating in solitude in the empty exhibition halls.
Old Chen suddenly realized that technology had not only changed the way people experienced things, but also changed the way marine life perceived things. The sunfish did not need an audience, but a world without an audience, a world where they could fully express themselves without being constrained by human gaze.
He silently turned off the monitoring system, leaving the sunfish with an empty exhibition hall. Old Chen returned to his office, turned on his computer, and began to write a new report, a report about the symbiosis between marine life and technology. He thought about the title for a long time, and finally typed the words: "The Paradox of Virtual and Reality, and the Vanishing Audience".
He suddenly remembered that a long time ago, a visitor had asked him, "Old Chen, don't you find it boring to watch these fish every day?" He had just smiled and not answered at the time. Now, he seemed to have found the answer. The answer was hidden in those empty exhibition halls, hidden in the eyes of those joyfully celebrating sunfish, hidden in his heart, in an increasingly clear and absurd scene.