Now the Metaverse Wants to Memory Hole... Things.
All of them.
Goooooooooooood morning, Vietnam! I thought I’d interrupt the internet’s nonstop debate over all things WWIII/Middle Eastern to bring you something shockingly conflict-free for a change. Yup, today’s post contains zero reports of airstrikes, no mention of missiles, and not even a single brink-of-war metaphor. You’re welcome.
Just when you thought the world couldn’t get any dumber—or sadder—Mark Zuckerberg shows up with a cocky, “Hold my invisible beer.”
On a recent episode of Theo Von’s podcast (yes, Von is the dude who’s famous for calling ferrets “the limousine of rats”), the master of the Metaverse unveiled his latest plan for societal transcendence: a world where nothing is real.
Literally, nothing.
“How many of the things that we physically have aren't going to need to be there in the future?" Zuckerberg mused. “Pretty much every screen doesn’t need to be there. It'll just be a hologram. Any media, any book that you're playing, any board game, any cards… they can all be holographic.”
[Author’s note: He literally said, “any book that you’re playing.” Because we play books now; we don’t even read them anymore. SMH.]
This bright, shiny future the billionaire tech bro envisions will live on your face. Inside a pair of glasses. To be clear, this won’t be your mom’s virtual reality headset from 2018—you know, the one that let you walk on the moon, pilot a helicopter, or ride the world’s most mind-bending rollercoaster; this is about adding digital layers to your existing life. You’re not replacing anything; you’re enhancing it. Putting a little lipstick on your swine-like human experience. Some reality Botox, if you will.
It’s called “augmented reality,” which might be the most optimistic euphemism since “between jobs.” It’s Olay’s “Love the skin you’re in” campaign—the one that wants you to accept and love yourself and also buy this anti-aging cream. “Your life is great, really! But what if we made it even better?”
Thanks to AR, Zuckerborg [not a typo] says that in the very near future we won’t need ping pong tables, books, cards, TVs, or apparently any physical object because we’ll be able to replace them all with 3D projections. It’s the Metaverse on steroids; a world where folks can completely forsake those cumbersome things known as things. You know, so we can pretend to play ping pong—right in our kitchens!—without even having to worry about where to store the table when we’re done.
This isn’t even satire.
Want a dog but don’t want to deal with the hassle of buying, walking, feeding, grooming, training, or cleaning up after it? Fret not, Dorothy! Now you can just airbrush an imaginary Toto right into your life. Feel like playing pickleball but too lazy to leave your bedroom? Boom! Insta-court, right there next to your hamper. It’s like a Snapchat filter for your entire existence, only a whole lot creepier and infinitely lonelier.
Von described his test run of the AR glasses with all the wide-eyed wonder of a suburban housewife who just stumbled into IKEA for the first time. “It wasn’t real, but it was like, 3D ping pong,” he gushed. “Someone could ride their bike through our game like it wasn’t there.”
And this is… a good thing?
This is the future they want.
In just four years “or hopefully less,” Zuck promises, we’ll all be walking around with these magic face goggles, batting at air, reading playing fake books, and pretending we’re not dying inside.
I love that for us. What could possibly go wrong with living inside a hyper-surveilled simulation run by the same guy who built an entire platform so you can stalk your exes and turned human interaction into a dopamine-fueled competition for strangers’ approval?
But wait, it gets better. According to the man who admitted to censoring anti-narrative Covid content on his platforms, augmented reality won’t just be a mind-blowing leap into the future—it’s also going to save the planet. Cutting back on physical goods will lower the pollution and waste that come from making, packaging, and shipping stuff, you see. And honestly, why manufacture real board games and books when we can strap headgear to toddlers and project Candy Land directly into their corneas? Think of all the cardboard we’ll save while raising a generation of kids whose idea of play is pretending to climb imaginary trees. Pinch me!
Oh, and we’re going to love not having to listen to anyone else’s annoying music or phone conversations anymore. That’s so twenty-twenty-two. We’ll all live in our own little bubbles, where we control what we see, hear, and experience 24/7. (It’ll be like Pay-per-view—only better because we actually get to wear the TV! Squee!)
Gone will be the days of cluttered closets and pesky human interaction. Marie Kondo? Minimalist child’s play. This isn’t about curating favorite things; this is about deleting them. All of them. Why own a blender when you can imagine a smoothie? Why go to the beach when you can just hologram some waves and a few seagulls onto your ceiling? No schlepping your gear, no sand in your sheets, and if you miss having that sun-kissed glow—surely they’re working on a hologram for that.
Of course, there are skeptics. Investors weren’t exactly thrilled when Meta’s stock fell 76% in 2022 after the company spent *checks notes* $60 billion on this virtual acid trip. And one wouldn’t expect the planet’s second-richest person to consider the commercial fallout of his fun little fantasy experiment—i.e., the utter decimation of the manufacturing, retail, and entertainment industries that currently depend on tangible goods. What’s a little economic collapse when you're thisclose to revolutionizing transhumanism? You think Z-berg loses sleep over the fate of Milton Bradley or the guy who makes couch coasters? Please—he’s too busy coding simulated sunsets.
I know what you’re thinking: how can we fight this insanity? I think the only possible recourse is to become aggressively analog; you know, Make Reality Great Again. Host game nights with real cards and snacks that stain your fingers. Read a book with a spine. Go outside and touch something that isn’t a screen—or a projection pretending to be a screen. Adopt an actual dog. Or at least pet someone else’s. Go full caveman whenever you can—wonder about something without Googling the answer, write a note in cursive, churn your own butter. Maybe if we all do it enough, we’ll remind the algorithm overlords that we’re still here, still real, and still very much capable of spilling salsa on a physical couch.
I’ve been encouraged lately that my 23 yo daughter (who is definitely a product of her generation) has been on this rabid kick to preserve physical media. She buys books and CD’s and DVD’s. In her car, she listens to an album as it was meant to be listened to. She and her sisters read whole books OUT LOUD to each other. I may have screwed up as a mom 1000 ways, but this makes me very proud.
I can barely get through this insanity.
Saying that tech is cleaner for the planet than cardboard and paper (both of which come from *trees* and return to *dirt*) is as dumb as claiming that electric-powered cars in the Midwest (where the electricity comes from... coal) are better for the environment than gas cars. What about the environmental costs of harvesting all those rare earth metals for the processors in the VR? Not to mention the human costs, a la Ukraine and places like it.
Besides, virtual dumbbells are not going to shape our biceps. Virtual tree climbing is not going to build the neural networks necessary for balance and strength and assessing risk. A virtual dog or spouse is not going to elicit the same tactile-snuggle-beside-me sensations and hormonal responses that a real, live, warm one will.
Garbage. All of it.
Reminds me of the gizmo Jeff Childers described recently ... a pocket-sized thingy that will purport to know us better than we know ourselves as it continuously assesses our every action and word.
We must walk wisely, not as fools.