Facebook recently changed its name to ‘Meta’ in order to position itself at the forefront of a new digital frontier called the metaverse. But what the heck is the metaverse, and what can it offer us mere mortals who do not inhabit the shiny Silicon Valley bubble? In the beginning, the metaverse was created. And to borrow from Douglas Adams, “this has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move”. In truth, the metaverse was neither good nor bad and ever since its creation it’s been imagined as a place of extremes – either a utopian horn of plenty, brimming with creative expression and untold wealth, or a dystopian cyber surveillance state, leaning in to systemic abuses of power and inequality. creative expression and untold wealth, or a dystopian cyber surveillance state, leaning in to systemic abuses of power and inequality. When you start to dig in, it becomes clear that most of the people making these claims have never actually been in a metaverse. If you do go there yourself, you’ll find the answer lies somewhere in between. Let’s take a look inside. Put simply, the metaverse is a whole lot of digital stuff that runs parallel to our physical life. That might sound like the internet, and that’s because the metaverse is a bit like the internet, only with more dancing. Bear with us. This universe was accessed via virtual reality goggles, but today some ‘metaverses’ already exist in video games like Roblox, Minecraft or Fortnite. A metaverse can even take hold in augmented reality spaces, where objects from the virtual world are projected into the real world via our screens. In short, metaverses are virtual spaces that we coexist in, free from the constraints of our fleshy meatsuits. 

This universe was accessed via virtual reality goggles, but today some ‘metaverses’ already exist in video games like Roblox, Minecraft or Fortnite. A metaverse can even take hold in augmented reality spaces, where objects from the virtual world are projected into the real world via our screens. In short, metaverses are virtual spaces that we coexist in, free from the constraints of our fleshy meatsuits.

“It is immersive experiences that let you do things with other people, like having fun adventures,” explains Craig Donato, the chief business officer of modern metaverse poster child, Roblox. Roblox is one of the neighbourhoods in the wider metaverse-verse. When you venture into Donato’s world, you can create games and share them with other people. But elsewhere in the metaverse’s consensual hallucination, there are (or are going to be) companies providing social networking, education and commerce. And that won’t be all you can do there. 

The real attraction is the other stuff – the things that aren’t anticipated. “It’s increasingly going to a concert or watching entertainment, or anything you can’t do in the real world,” explains Donato.

Eagle-eyed readers will recognise that all these things are possible in the so-called real world. “But the twist is that you get to do these things free of physical constraints, however you do it or how you enjoy it. It’s transformed in a positive way,” Donato says.

This guide recognises that this nuts-and-bolts description isn’t as sexy as ‘the future of the internet’, or even ‘a sandbox that lets us explore human imagination’. It doesn’t come close to ‘freeing people from geographical and economic limits’. But, at the moment, that is what it is. And indeed, what it has been. And until technology catches up with the hype, what it will be. Because when you venture into the metaverse, you’ll discover that there’s really no there, there. Ground Zero for the metaverse is difficult to pin down. Some people suggest it reaches back to the Great Exhibition of 1851, when the future of the world was housed within Crystal Palace in the centre of London. Inside, Victorians could behold the wonders of the first fax machine, submarines and mechanical birds. In a sense, it was a metaverse filled with wonder and held together by the latest technology.