Why Metaverse Will really Actually Suck in 2022

10 min readFeb 24, 2022

Why Metaverse Will really Actually Suck in 2022 ?It’s been dubbed a utopia, and a place most of us will be unable to avoid in the years to come. It will change your life in so many ways: But is that such a good thing?

What actually is the Metaverse will Suck ?

It’s a word people keep on hearing these days yet we doubt many folks actually know

what it is. One of the most outspoken proponents of the Metaverse is that chap that looks and acts a bit like a cyborg, the man named Mark Zuckerberg.

He even changed his company name to Meta, so it seems his hopes are riding high on us

all getting on board with his idea of a tech utopia.

When he refers to this place, this new kind of tech universe, he’s really only talking

about a larger cyber space where immersion in our technology will allow us to be more

connected than ever before.

But how could we possibly be more connected than we already are?

It will mean more virtual and augmented reality in our lives.

For instance, in the Metaverse, you’d have an avatar, and that avatar would interact

with other avatars.

Let’s say you have a meeting online. That could look like a bunch of avatars having a meeting, but they would interact with each other in a very realistic-looking environment. The point is, to make you feel the virtual reality is real.

You’ve probably seen something like this in the tech-dystopia series, Black Mirror.

One or a few of those episodes shows people living in this other world more than the real

world.

At times, they gain points for the things they do in this Metaverse.

Sometimes you are motivated to do those things because there’s a payoff.

We call this “gamification”. You’ve already seen things close to that, like when you get badges for using certain tech.

The reward is supposed to keep you going back to that application or page.

It shows others how great you are. In the Metaverse Will , you’ll never stop competing to gain more points. You might also gain other virtual items and those items can be traded, sold, or given

away, on various platforms.

In a true Metaverse will, you’d have the ability to trade with anyone. virtual world

This avatar of yours will be able to interact with other avatars across all platforms, hence virtual world

you’d be in a Metaverse. Sounds like fun, eh?

But just keep watching, we think by the end of this show you’ll think twice about signing up to the Metaverse. So, basically, the Metaverse is a way to immerse ourselves more in tech using applications

used in tandem with virtual and augmented reality devices. You become part of this other world, just like you do in some games, such as The Sims. But this time it’s not just a game, it’s your life. Let’s say you work from home, and like us at the Infographics Show, you have a bunch

of people working together that rarely see each other, if at all.

When you have meetings, a bunch of virtual characters get together. Maybe when you do something good, your virtual character gets a virtual pat on the back in the form of a virtual reward that can be exchanged for something of value in the real world.

These virtual offices, we are told, are the future of work. Hell, virtual schools could be the future.

Microsoft is already on this.

In 2022, it will release Mesh for Microsoft Teams, which will mean holograms meeting in

virtual spaces for work. You might think, well, I have Slack and I have email and I have Zoom, so why the hell do I need a virtual guy in a virtual office?

Good question.

Microsoft says there will be a “feeling of presence” when you use Mesh. Your avatar is going to make you feel like you’re really there. It will be just like being with people, but not quite.

Let’s say the Infographics Show boss, along with the writers and editors, want to talk

about why our Metaverse video was so popular and why the writer is so cool.

In the normal world, that would sometimes mean sending files to certain people or chatting

within an application, but all we will ever see is a name and some text or maybe some

video. For Microsoft, that’s not good enough.

The company thinks people will work a lot better and be more creative if all the avatars

discuss ideas in this virtual world. Here are some selling points Microsoft offers: “Connect with new depth and dimension. Engage with eye contact, facial expressions, and gestures.

Your personality shines as technology fades away.”

“This common understanding ignites ideas, sparks creativity, and forms powerful bonds.”

Wow, it sounds fab, now I can’t wait to become an avatar and gossip at the virtual water fountain with the other Infographics show employees. Looking as usual like Data from Star Trek, Mark Zuckerberg outlined what he thought the Metaverse would be in a video.

As always, Zucks used a lot of flowery language regarding us being closer together in a world

of “greater richness”. “We’ll be able to feel present,” he explained, “like we’re right there with

people no matter how far apart we actually are.” He talked about “the joyful, completely immersive” way we’ll communicate.

Just listening to him felt like taking a hit of virtual heroin. He mentioned that with the help of headsets and other tech, when we share videos we’ll feel like we’re in the room with the people in the video. When we play a game, we’ll feel like we’re in the game itself, not just looking at it

on a screen.

When Charlie Brooker wrote Black Mirror, he had already seen this world. But for him, it was a nightmare.It was everything that’s wrong with the world. Like a 19th century British poet, rather than be more out of this world, Brooker would say we should be getting closer to nature.

Still, according to Zuckerberg, the Metaverse isn’t about spending more time looking at

screens, but having a better experience when we use our devices.

He failed to mention that some of his applications have been called digital opiates, even by

some former Facebook employees. As usual, he didn’t talk about how much money he will make. He wants you more connected, which will mean spending more money in his universe and making

Zucks richer than he already is. The fact is, this more immersive world will make you more addicted. Back in 2011, writing for the New York Times, the technophobe novelist Jonathan Franzen wrote about this issue of us becoming addicted to tech.

At the time, he obviously didn’t know about the Metaverse but we think he saw one coming.

Here’s a snippet from that article: “To speak more generally, the ultimate goal

of technology, the telos of techne, is to replace a natural world that’s indifferent

to our wishes — a world of hurricanes and hardships and breakable hearts, a world of

resistance — with a world so responsive to our wishes as to be, effectively, a mere

extension of the self.”

You see, you won’t have to be yourself in the Metaverse. You will be replaced by an avatar, and that avatar as Franzen says won’t experience some of the very human things we feel in the real world. At first, this will feel great for you. You’ll settle right in. But then one day you’ll find yourself wanting to stay in this place of easy streets and forgo reality.

As Franzen wrote, “the verb ‘to like’” on social media has changed “from a state

of mind to an action that you perform with your computer mouse, from a feeling to an

assertion of consumer choice

.” You yourself will dedicate your time to being liked in this virtual world, creating an unreal character and this won’t make you happy.

No longer will you laugh at meetings at work, but your character will laugh.

metaverse Will that really feel like laughing?

We guess some of you are thinking, well, this sounds pretty good actually.

Maybe you’re comparing Jonathan Franzen to one of those Luddite folks from England

who went around factories during the industrial revolution smashing up machines because they

didn’t like the idea of machines replacing them.

You are thinking that the Metaverse is just an extension of the Internet that will undoubtedly

help you buy more things, and it might just help you to be more productive when you work.

It will enable you to look at someone’s video of a concert online and then you can

use your avatar to feel like you’re at the concert, too.

It sounds great, and Franzen, you think, is a snob from another age. According to an article in Forbes, the Metaverse is undoubtedly coming, no matter how many people like Franzen warn us of how dangerous it will be. The writer for that Forbes article rightly finished the story, saying, side-effects, “unknown.”

You spending a hell of a lot of time sitting in a room wearing a headset might not be a

great thing for your well-being. You spending much more time on the internet than you already do may not turn out all hunky-dory. In fact, your online life might be might take up most of your real life.

Do you really need that?

You will waste away on the couch like a rotten apple in a compost heap. You will not be able to stop. Whoever owns the Metaverse owns you. It will be more powerful than a drug, more addictive than TV, more alluring than an oasis in a time of great thirst.

It will have you running on a virtual treadmill and attending your friend’s funeral from

50 miles away. And oh, how you’ll shed many virtual tears. Now let’s talk about love.

Let’s face it, we all need a bit of love in our lives. Did you know that since the advent of dating apps such as Tinder, fewer people are actually

in long-term relationships?

Vox magazine writes that “Consumerism has hijacked courtship.” Instead of dating, you consume photographs within an app. Many people spend a lot of time on apps chatting with someone they won’t actually meet. Hey, if they don’t meet you face-to-face they’ll never know you used a photo-editor to transform your imperfect face and they won’t know that in real-life you stutter a little bit.

It’s safer staying your distance, but in the end, this relationship is completely unfulfilling.

That’s likely one reason why so many young people are so depressed these days.

Now imagine how dating and love would be transformed if Zuckerberg is right.

What if in the Metaverse you really feel like you are with someone else when you’re both

just avatars?

Will you ever take the risk of meeting face-to-face?

As the writer for Vox says, when you spend time in the unreal world with someone else,

“there’s a loss of connection with your own emotions, which is sad.

Because emotional connection is supposed to be the point of dating.”

Unlike real life, in the Metaverse you’d gain rewards for dating and gain more points

for buying something for your date.

You’d become a product, one that’s reviewed and one that goes to great lengths to accrue

more points. Your point score might actually attract more people to you, and those with fewer points might have to sit on the proverbial shelf, while in real life, good old-fashioned dating

is more complex than that.

You will become a slave in the Metaverse, doing things just to amass more points so

you can impress someone and perhaps one day give them a virtual hug. Maybe when you go to the virtual office you can receive virtual compliments about getting to first base with a bunch of ones and zeroes. All the time, when you are virtually homeless dating and maybe buying stuff online for your virtual

lover, you’re spending virtual currency, and guess who takes a cut of every transaction?

Mr. Zuckerberg of course, so no wonder he looks so over the moon with the Metaverse. That’s not to mention that in the Metaverse everything you do is surveilled. For God’s sake don’t curse or blaspheme or speak your mind and offend someone, because that could get you locked out of many of the places you’ll want to be.

In the Metaverse there are rules, and you my friends, will abide by them.

That’s why the Metaverse will be a constellation of boring drones; not real people who have

nuance to their personalities.

And what will happen to all the people who can’t even afford to be in the Metaverse?

They will be like pariahs forsaken by the tech Gods.

They will be virtually homeless, and don’t think they’ll be employable if they’re

not in the Metaverse.

Employers will want to see your score, they’ll require your Metaverse handle.

For Zuckerberg, the Metaverse is a utopia, and it might be for a man that has about as

much personality as a plug.

The Metaverse will exploit the vulnerable, the lonely, and the weak.

We doubt Zuckerberg really thinks this way though.

He’s just in a position to monopolize your weaknesses.

To use Facebook parlance, Zuckerberg is in the process of mounting a “coordinated attack”

to devour your existence.

He said as much when he claimed the Metaverse will be the place “where people will live,

work and play.”

We don’t need more isolation.

The COVID-19 lockdowns were proof that isolation makes us depressed and for some, hit the bottle or the prescription mind meds.

Good mental health depends on our close relationships with others.

Virtuality is no replacement for reality.

In the Metaverse we will suffocate under an avalanche of merciless terabytes if we are

careless enough to try and surf this bottomless web of enticing nonsense.

As a pundit on technology told the BBC about the Metaverse, “It’s a bad idea, and the

fact we are all sitting and looking at this like it’s normal should be alarming everyone.”

It’s not normal.

It’s everything science fiction has told you to be worried about.

Now you need to watch “Why Do You Even Exist?”

Or, have a look at “Why Is There A Universe?”