Mark Zuckerburg recently announced that Facebook would be rebranding as Meta Platforms- ‘Meta’ for short- and that they would be shifting their focus to virtual and augmented reality platforms, calling it “the future of social connectivity,” and even announcing their intention to create something called a “metaverse,” a complete world contained within the internet. The BUTT was unsure how to respond to this: Was it a joke? Did they really think people wanted this? Most importantly, do they have a plan to make the metaverse not be lame? Because it sounds really lame. Therefore, we turned to the only person we felt had even a chance of understanding it: comics writer Grant Morrison. However, even the master of metaphysical narrative was not sold on this latest scheme to profit off of users’ reluctance to spend thirty seconds adjusting their privacy settings.
“A metaverse? Really? That’s a little far-fetched,” they said as they sifted through classic comic reference materials. “I can believe that what we experience as linear time is nothing more than the tip of the iceberg, the one facet of a vast unknowable comprehensible from the perspective of our universe, and I can also believe that there is a meta-here where all events occur simultaneously, but I can’t believe that people would want to exist within a virtual world run by the company who can’t even filter bots out of my “People You May Know” list.”
“I think the biggest problem with it is that ‘Meta’ just isn’t approachable to the general public,” they continued, switching their attention from a stack of Silver Age Adam Strange specials to a four-thousand year old copy of the Book of the Dead that seemed to radiate a faint glow, “and I should know- I’ve written myself into the climax of four different series.”
“And you know, it’s one thing to resolve the story of a god of evil whose quintessence is occupying the very fabric of the multiverse with a Rubik’s Cube and a tonic note, but it’s another thing entirely to expect the public to want Facebook to be more present in their everyday lives right now.” At press time, Morrison confirmed that if people wanted to live in augmented reality, they should try lots and lots and lots of psychedelics, and maybe cast a few chaos magic spells.
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