ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the general observations of real life and cultural practice: the notion of the substitutes to actual life found in virtual worlds, social media and immersive gaming which can be seen as one cause for the rising popularity of forking-path narratives in other media. Most virtual reality experiences can be linked to the theory of make-believe. The relationship between reality, even imagined, and a fictional, alternative world is significant to be classified as being counterfactual. The chapter discusses the ways in which movies follow certain patterns that make the construction, visualisation and understanding of counterfactual stories possible. The various strategies used to represent alternatives to a particular path in life can be best observed in movies. The movie contains many well-elaborated details. Advertising is the discipline which plays most obviously with counterfactual thoughts in everyday life. In music, the counterfactual moment occurs in the varying experiences of the audience in live performances.
