If there’s one, unlikely glimmer in the dark for dissenters, it’s not in the actual concept of the metaverse, which is horribly logical. It’s in the vibe it emits, the look and feel of the thing. Because no matter how hard they try to make it so, the metaverse isn’t sexy. In fact, it is – for now at least – incredibly ugly, banal, lame. It’s a place full of washed-up rappers, crypto-ministers, teenage footballers, banks and EDM DJs. Warhol’s Factory, it is not. That being said, events like Ariana Grande’s Fortnite concert and a number of genuinely beautiful NFT collections, like graphic artist Ezra Miller’s Solvency series, suggest there is scope to create something exciting, youthful and important amid all the clamour. Maybe the problem is simply that Zuckerberg and Co’s imaginations don’t stretch that far.
It’s also beginning to look like a bit of a missed opportunity for a genuinely better world. Instead of starting over, some of the worst aspects of late-capitalist excess are already in Web3. As previously mentioned, JP Morgan, as well as HSBC and Standard Chartered, are all working on meta “experiences”, while NFTs and “digital real estate” have already become status symbols and dividers, ensuring the inequalities of reality are brought forward into this new dimension. If you have money on Earth, you can carry it over into the metaverse, like the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt bringing their riches into the afterlife.
There are also dark clouds of doubt forming over similar projects. Already, we’ve seen some NFT projects descend into farce, scrutiny and, perhaps, ruin. The people hawking Bored Apes, Anxious Koalas and whatever else have yet to convince a naturally cynical public of their legitimacy. When Paris Hilton and Jimmy Fallon pulled that bizarre show-and-tell routine on the latter’s late-night show, it seemed like little more than a con, a primetime cups-and-balls hustle. When Hilton, Ja Rule and numerous other millennial survivors try to get their fans in on it, only the richest and silliest commit. In just one example of sudden NFT crashes, the value of ex-England captain John Terry’s “Ape Kids Football Club” collection plummeted by 90 per cent in just one month.
Of course, that’s not to say there is no worth in non-fungible culture or decentralised currency going forwards. In fact, only a fool would suggest crypto is a fad. But, for now at least, it all seems far less seismic than its believers would like. More of an interesting cottage industry than the nailed-on future of all connectivity and commerce we were told it was.
Because of this, the language around the metaverse must be evangelical and unceasing in its conviction. There is a conspiracy of positivity at the heart of it all. Witness the endless grand statements about “butt-railing the status quo”, bellowed by hyper-sincere Ivy League boys in Techwear hoodies. Those familiar with dubious, trendy, modern church groups like Hillsong and The Alpha Course will recognise the rhetoric. When Zuckerberg takes the stage, he appears in the public mind not as the world leader he so clearly wants to be, but as an estate agent, a timeshare salesman, an Old West huckster.
There is a tangible desperation, a lack of confidence in the eyes of metaverse converts that’s easy to pick up on for anyone with a trace level of emotional intelligence. A lot of people have a lot riding on this – they need our business – and nothing sells worse than need.
My abiding hope is not that Web3 will crash and burn, because somehow, they’ll make it happen, even if it’s just something I have to log into once a month to get paid. No, my dream, however petty and personal, is that it will never quite land. That it will fall in line with what Facebook has become: a place where people you went to school with sit around streaming Chainsmokers concerts.
Or just maybe, it’s me that’s the problem, clinging on to the old world in the face of progress, cuddling up to my rave videos, trying to get one last ride out of this knackered old mare. Perhaps, as Zuckerberg suggests, I am indeed running on an out-of-date operating system. Trying to get Life3 to work on Web2.
