The Metaverse is Shaping to be the Fyre Festival of the Internet
Facebook, yes, that’s right, Facebook’s reach is inescapable. As a titan of social media, it’s incorporated itself into numerous aspects of our lives. From the messenger app that we use to communicate with our friends/families to our Instagram pages populated with countless selfies, it’s easy to discern its impact on society. After all, nearly every adult in the world has at one point created a profile within these apps. Some even manage their lives through them, such as influencers and scammers. Unsurprisingly, this level of popularity meant that Facebook inevitably came under fire from the media. In response, Mark Zuckerberg tried rebranding his company as Meta, but that’s not fooling anyone. Because as the adage says, you can pour some sprinkles on a turd, but that doesn’t mean you can call it a cupcake. Meta is still Facebook, and no amount of sugarcoating will ever change that fact.
If you’re reading this article, you’re probably at least vaguely aware of Zark Muckerberg’s new project. A virtual reality (VR) “paradise” where people can interact and play with each other on a deeper level than the internet. It will allow us to see and feel the other people around us versus merely talking, video calling, or playing a videogame with them. Logically, this is the next step in the evolution of the information era. But, while it might sound like heaven to some people, to others, it’s a dystopian nightmare. Think about how many people already spend most of their lives scrolling through Facebook; the metaverse will more than likely amplify that by ten. After all, humans are naturally curious creatures. New technology is enticing and exciting to them. To humanity, the metaverse is a metaphorical Pandora’s box waiting for someone to open it. Who knows what wonders, or more aptly curses it will bestow upon it?
Yet, therein lies a problem. As we speak, the metaverse is hawking itself to the highest bidders. Someone even spent $450,000 buying a virtual plot of land next to Snoop Dogg’s house in the metaverse. Others are gobbling up all the Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) to hoard virtual wealth. Cryptocurrencies started spawning left and right in preparation for the release of the metaverse. All of these acts harm the environment of the real world. The same one we experience daily. But, it doesn’t matter to them because they’ll be “rich” in the metaverse. Reality be damned if this picture of a stupid monkey can score us some influencer points and costs millions of dollars.
All of this spits in the face of the same novels that inspired the titular metaverse. In those books, the worlds were literal hellscapes, operated by corporations and the wealthy elite, where the poor only had one escape. Ready Player One calls it the Oasis, Shadowrun knows it as the matrix, and Snow Crash gave it the metaverse moniker. All of these books/tabletop games share more than a few strands of genetic material, and in each of them, the world sucks.
Yet, does this mean I think the world is damned when the metaverse releases? No, but these stories serve as a cautionary tale against corporate greed and escapism. When we spend most of our time in an escapist reality, spending all our money on fantasy, we ignore the world around us. It isn’t until the protagonists of these stories decide to take charge of their lives that things improve for everyone. Even the shadowrunners of the titular game decide they will rather live and die by their own rules rather than bow down to the heartless corporations around them. The message boils down to life offers more than fake real estate in a virtual house next to Snoop Dogg’s. However, the concern lies in the predatory practices that people are engaging in, in anticipation of its release.
Take NFTs as an example; do you honestly think they’re worth the millions of dollars people spent on them? No, the fact is a lot of users artificially boost their price by buying from their own supply. Don’t believe me? Here’s an article explaining how they do it. Those people are scam artists, peddling snake oil to those foolish enough to buy into their nonsense. NFTs are inherently worthless, yes, you might own the “digital signature” of a piece of “art” on the internet, but that doesn’t stop anyone from right-click, saving it, and sharing it elsewhere. Some of these tokens are even being sold repeatedly through the same platforms. While some will argue that the legal ownership of an image that “belongs” to them gives them copyright over it, the fact is they don’t own anything. What happens to someone if two people own the same NFT because they bought them legitimately? What if you’re a screenwriter/artist/painter, and someone sells your art as a token? Or, in the case of Quentin Tarantino, you sell a draft of your movie’s script as an NFT? By now, you’re probably thinking, okay, maybe, those aren’t a good purchase, but what about cryptocurrencies? Those have to be worth something. Sadly, they aren’t worthwhile purchases either.
Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin are all inherently worthless as well. None of these have intrinsic value, just imaginary value that we’ve assigned to them. Some will say that the same can apply to paper currency, and in essence, they’re right. But, therein lies the problem, what’s stopping us from using the same money we use when purchasing on Amazon.com? Even if Facebook didn’t want to use our Visa debit card, what’s preventing Lank Zuckerstein from making up a virtual currency like V-bucks or Robux that is purchasable directly from his company? We don’t need a million new cryptocurrencies to purchase things right now, so why would we need it in the metaverse? Not everyone wants to create a crypto wallet, and when convenience is at stake, people will take the path of least resistance. If that means punching in their credit card number via digital keyboard, that’s what they will do.
If you’re thinking, well, it’s all about privacy and keeping my purchases private, too bad the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) can trace those too. If you’re not on a large enough scale to draw attention from them right now, as you’re purchasing drugs from the cartels or some guy on the dark web? Trust me they, don’t care; you’re a small fry. They already have your information.
If you’re instead treating cryptocurrencies as an investment? Then stop, seriously, invest in company stocks or mutual funds instead; you’re better off. Cryptocurrencies are a pyramid scheme; owned primarily by the rich, millionaires, and billionaires that raise their price artificially by buying up the majority of the supply and then dumping it. A quick Google search will show the number of cryptocurrencies that are now dead thanks to these practices. People have lost their life savings on these, such as with Bitconnect. Yet, here we still are, peddling these like it’s the future somehow, but they have been around for over a decade, and we still value them versus the US Dollar. It’s almost like that’s the standard of worth somehow. So, what will happen if, instead of Ethereum, Facebook decides to use F-Buxs instead? Trust me; I’m pretty sure they will.
Darth Fuckerberg wants us to stay connected to his domain permanently. Glued to our virtual reality goggles in our chairs, he wants us to buy his fake land while drinking his digital kool-aid. It’s all a ploy by the elite. When you need to spend almost the same amount as a median home in California to buy a digital house, something is seriously wrong with the world. You could; I don’t know, maybe buy a real one for someone who needs it instead? However, this is all a tactical strike that’s all-too-familiar in Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and Wallstreet.
The rich and powerful are given preferential passes to all of these first-come-first-serve types of scenarios. Those expensive plots of land will only get more costly over time. Coveted spots such as Snoop Dogg’s backyard or his doghouse will only grow in value if we let it happen. After all, if there is no demand for it, the price will naturally plummet. Although the space in the metaverse will be theoretically unlimited, the call of late-stage capitalism will artificially create scarcity to increase demand. These companies are trying to make us think that we need to be a part of the metaverse. By using influencers and artists that we know and admire, they’re trying to make us emulate them. It’s a tale as old as time, the same thing that Fyre Festival did all those years ago. Hire a bunch of influencers to visit an island in the Caribbean and pretend like it was the event of a lifetime. All smoke and mirrors.
Think about it, inside an imaginary world, the possibilities are nearly limitless. Yet, the developers seem hellbent on adding restrictions that make it sound frankly unappealing. We aren’t uploading our consciousness into the matrix; we aren’t going to disappear into the metaverse and leave our desecrated husk of a body lying behind on the couch. When we die, that’s it, our consciousness goes away with us, and the metaverse will continue. As you lay in a pool of your own urine and feces, they’re probably going to sell your virtual house off once they notice your social security number has marked you as deceased. Next thing you know, you also signed away your real-world estate after failing to read the terms of service because you were too busy masturbating to virtual pornography.
So, why even bother with it? Speculation is the entire driving force behind the metaverse movement, and it might just be Fyre Festival all over again. A disappointing mess of an experience that leaves everyone regretting their purchase. As these last few decades demonstrate, we are in the age of the grift.
We had a president who raised $170,000,000 on a lie regarding the election. A college dropout who said she could find every disease you have with a prick of a finger and a small blood sample. One Russian immigrant whose Ponzi scheme netted her $300,000 off a deal with Netflix. Another college dropout promised to create the next Woodstock and failed to deliver his promise from every angle possible. Each of them is a grifter who made bank through their empty promises and lies. Sitting atop a throne of falsehoods and laughing as those they’ve conned, counting the dollars they stole from the naïve. No different than those currently promoting the metaverse for the sake of their bottom line.
And us? Well, we’re going to be sitting in a virtual tent on a beach in a digital sandbar somewhere while the affluent grifters live their best lives in both the physical and digital worlds.
There isn’t money in making people feel like they’re enough, but if they’re constantly making you miserable, you’ll always try to prove them wrong. Even if all it amounts to is a pyrrhic victory and costs you, the only thing that matters in life, happiness.