The Metaverse

At the end of June, our social network overlord Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook’s CEO) told Facebook employees that social networks are so last year, and the so-called Metaverse—an interconnected world of digital experiences—would be the goal for his companies’ future. 

While the mention of a metaverse may feel novel, the idea has been around for a while—first coined by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel, Snow Crash. Then, it referred to a hybrid augmented virtual and physical reality connected by the internet. It wasn’t a “this is how cool the future will be” depiction, but more of a “this is how much of a nightmare the future will be if we transition our society to a digital space controlled by various corporations.” So less Ready Player One and more The Matrix but replace the machines with billionaires who want to sell you stuff and hopefully without the energy farm thing, as that would not be ideal. 

At any rate, the term “Metaverse” was not meant to be a good thing so it’s very strange to me that this is the term Zuckerberg landed on. He’s not the only billionaire head of a corporation who’s been trying to make this a real thing either. Tim Sweeny—the CEO of Epic Games (the creators of the incredibly popular game Fortnite and the Unreal Engine—has been into this for a long time. Within Fortnite, they’ve been toying with the baby steps of forming the metaverse, hosting virtual concerts with Travis Scott and Ariana Grande, and most recently hosting a “March Through Time” where players can virtually relive Martin Luther King Jr.’s March On Washington. Unfortunately, good intentions did guide this experience forward successfully, as the game developers actually had to remove play features, like emotes, because they proved so distracting, if not also disrespectful to the activation. It’s almost as though placing Rick Sanchez from Rick and Morty front and center during Dr. King Jr’s, seminal “I Have A Dream” speech was a bad idea.

But back to Zuckerberg. He announced Facebook’s first foray into the Metaverse with a…digital meeting tool. Very cool Mark, very cool. All you have to do is buy their $299 Occulus headset, and then you can host your very own digital meeting complete with avatars. Named Horizon Workrooms, you can co-work digitally with up to 16 people, without real faces or real happiness. If you’ve ever thought working would be easier if everyone’s Nintendo Mii was running around your living room or home office, then strap on your virtual reality headset, Mark’s got the solution for you.  

And despite how underwhelming this first iteration of the metaverse appears,, it’s all anyone’s talking about. If a brand has any kind of digital integration outside of it’s own website or social media pages it’s all of a sudden “[ENTER COMPANY NAME HERE] ENTERS THE METAVERSE!” It’s inescapable now, just a quick glance at Google Trends shows how much interest in this has skyrocketed. 

Like recently, Vans announced a collaboration with Roblox where you can play a worse version of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater complete with Vans logos all over the place. Last year, that would have just been a fun thing. But now it’s another step towards our horrible future of having a digitally integrated life sponsored by Coca Cola and State Farm. I’m already mad at how many times we are collectively going to hear and read this word throughout the rest of this century. 

On the surface, I guess the idea is cool, and sure the intentions might be harmless for now. Like Tim Sweeny, Zuckerberg wants us to have new opportunities to be with our friends and loved ones when we can’t physically be there with each other. But this is an opportunity to connect that comes with a distinct price tag—at least $300 in gear alone—and replaces in-person connection with online interactions, despite growing research that digital relationships  are less meaningful because of their lack of substance. 

And there’s the added consideration of the COVID-19 pandemic. After a year and a half of being required to do more digitally, are we as a society interested in this anymore? Maybe in 2018, I would have said, “Wow, cool, I can pretend my walk through the neighborhood is actually in the Grand Canyon.” But now, after all this time spent hanging out in my living room–where the hours of working remotely and watching TikTok blend seamlessly together–I am absolutely not looking for new ways to be connected to a device. 

I, like many others, found a new appreciation for just being around real stuff. Smelling the flowers, feeling the breeze on brisk afternoon walk, feeling the sun pump me full of Vitamin D. It gave me avenues to connect with my family, friends and even myself that had been lost to me. Going to the park? Just taking a solo trip to walk around a big ole rock in the Texas hill country? The pleasure of coming home tired after an afternoon of interacting with the Earth has just been exhilarating to me. I really don’t want to leave that behind to spend real money on augmented reality clothes to wear while I’m out on the town virtual town with my friend who lives in another state. 

Not to say that augmented and virtual reality aren’t cool, I just don’t want to live there. I don’t want that to blend into my life more than just playing a fun game or looking at some constellations when I point my phone to the night sky. Maybe I’m too old, (I’m only 27, so probably not) but this all sounds like too much to me.

We used to use the internet to find interesting connections that expanded our horizons and social circles, but as Niantic CEO John Hanke says, “What we call social today is really not so much about social. It’s about consuming this curated, suggested stream of content that’s being fed to us so that ads can be inserted into it.” We spend hours escaping by scrolling through a manufactured lens peering into the ‘world’ around us. And its promise of escape is in fact designed around the same constructs that create isolation, at best, and oppression, at worst, in the real world. The Metaverse, as it’s shaping up, won’t meet our needs for real connection. Why would we invest so much when it offers little tangible benefit? And why is the Metaverse Facebook’s future instead of tackling the intense misinformation on their own platform?

I’m skeptical that the futures that Zuckerberg and Sweeny are opportunities for connection, but opportunities to be sold to and to buy. 

I don’t think the Metaverse can’t be done “right” but I don’t think that Facebook and Epic have the right idea here. For them, it comes as a pivot, the next logical step to further their technological marketing schemes. While they imagine it’ll be a wonderful playground for self expression, it will inevitably digitally mirror the divisions in place in our very real world that we live in today. 

All that being said, at this point, it’s inevitable. Our digital lives and our real lives have been converging for years, there’s probably going to be a lot of cool things that will come out of this, but if you’re planning on dipping your toes into the Metaverse, think: is this perpetuating real divisions in a digital space?

Let’s keep the Metaverse from becoming a dystopia.