Why The Metaverse Was Doomed From The Start
Remember when the Metaverse was announced in 2021? If you never saw this disturbing bit of corporate propaganda, consider yourself lucky. Personally, I've always found it a fascinating document of how profoundly out of touch tech billionaires have become.
Comments (20)
this video had me cracking up, and it's what brought me to the channel. I watched it multiple times. your thesis here that meta's entire VR strategy was doomed to fail from the start because of zuck's so-called 'vision' (or lack there of), and that this manifested in the laughable video that they produced, would have been a very challenging argument to make. but your video essay both convincing and elegant, with an entertaining delivery. bravo!
While I love your deep dives into what makes for great storytelling, there is plenty of bad story telling that is just a joy to listen to you pick apart. I hadn't seen the Metaverse film, but your video allowed me to steep in my loathing of all that the "lead star" represents without wasting 75min of my life.
I was just watching a video on this by Patrick Boyle and asked myself, "Didn't I watch this already?" It feels like a rehash of your video...
Interesting - I've seen a few comments making a similar claim. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Watched this with my high school daughter and couldn't help thinking how limited English classes are, focusing almost solely on novels and literature. It feels like a larger storytelling curriculum would be more fun and useful. Movies, TV, ads, theater, music, jokes.... Stories are all around, even in a tech PR video! And I loved the video you did on the Swing. Have you ever considered looking at a story in a song? Great stuff as always.
Yes, that is in part what I want my channel to be - I want to find discussions of storytelling in places you might expect. As for doing a song - absolutely. The only challenge there is that most recorded music is an immediate copyright flag, so it's very difficult to do.
As a /very/ mild defense of Zucker-Borg (ooh, sick burn, five points for me!), Spielberg himself made perhaps the ultimate VR propaganda in Ready Player One. I remember exiting the theater after seeing that movie and grousing to my pals that "In MY day, we thought living in The Matrix was a BAD thing!" Hm... essay idea? (Related essay idea: the whole point of the first movie is escaping from a soul-devouring computer simulation, and then the Wachoswkis made sequels that culminated in a years-long MMORPG designed to... trap people in a computer simulation.) So, I can't help but wonder if Spielberg saw that Metaverse announcement video and felt any pangs of... something.
I enjoyed your view from the "future" on the promises made in the video, and analysis of the actual production of the video from your being in the industry. I also enjoyed it from a "failure of storytelling" aspect, and would definitely like to see more of that sort of analysis on other topics. I resent that the term Metaverse was coopted by a corporate entity from its origin in fiction.
Yeah true - the metaverse as a concept is actually interesting, and may yet come to fruition in the future. Although now the word is tainted by Zuck's attempt to own it. But anyway, glad to hear you enjoyed this one. Especially because "corporate video" is such a weird topic to cover on YouTube lol. But honestly, it's something I've spent a lot of my professional life thinking about, so I may cover it more in the future. It's sort of in line with some of the "advertising" videos I've done – "Daisy" which is one of my top performers, and "Vintage Coke" which is one of my lowest. Honestly though I think I just need to not care about views and keep taking risks with new subjects.
Ha! I'm watching you while you're wielding your tongue as a sharp rapier to sting the corporate interests and the crazy egomaniac behind them 🤣
Oooh yes I love this description lol. Glad you're enjoying Teresa. EN GUARDE!
Let’s visit the meta verse… before we climb mount bullshit let’s stroll through the uncanny valley of horror. Oh, and yes to Attenborough- yes please. Herzog would be great as well.
Herzog FOR SURE. "Into The Abyss" is one I could talk about for hours. My background is mostly in documentary filmmaking actually, which I've never actually discussed on the channel. But Herzog is a fascinating figure. He recommends that every filmmaker read a book called "The Peregrine", which is a naturalist's observations of Peregrine's in england lol. I tried reading it and was just more confused.
Hey have you seen Bezerk? I would love to see a breakdown of Guts and or Griffith. Loads of material there. Fantastic story. Thank you, love your videos!
Sorry to say I'm not familiar. But please do send recommendations. There's so much out there I need to cover!
Great video as always... Though I'm not sure I appreciate being retraumatized by this Zuckerberg video. Attenborough would be great. For the sake of my childhood nature doc nostalgia, include Steve Irwin, Jeff Corwin, and Zoboomafoo. Other related educational nostalgia bait: Bill Nye, Magic School Bus, Reading Rainbow, and Wishbone.
Zoboomanfoo would be awesome lol
Great video!
Another great video. I love seeing media like this through the storytelling lens. Also Attenborough video when?
Just need to figure out how to approach it. I guess maybe about how he makes nature relatable, or how he turns animal behaviour into drama