Financial TimesFinancial Times

Whatever happened to the metaverse?

By Jemima Kelly

16 Feb 2023 · 3 min read

Editor's Note

A year on from Meta’s dystopian Super Bowl ad for VR headsets, many of us are losing interest in a virtual future—including Meta’s own investors. The FT’s Jemima Kelly asks: Where did it all go wrong?

Remember when we were all going to ditch our humdrum lives, tedious physical needs and uninspiring friends and family, so that we could live a life of virtual bliss in the metaverse? When we could give up the endless pursuit of self-improvement and just exist as perfect avatars instead? When Facebook rebranded to Meta because, from now on, the company was going to be “metaverse-first, not Facebook-first”?

It has been just one year since Meta’s fabulously dystopian Super Bowl advert for its VR headsets, in which a group of friends who have lost touch get back together in the virtual world (in the real one they were all alone, with no buddies — or lower halves).

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