The metaverse as capitalist nonsense

Courtesy of Elif Ayiter

By David A. Tizzard

I don't want to live in the metaverse. Multimillion dollar companies' insistence on intoxicating us with sentimentality, hooking us on disposable simulated emotions, ubiquitous visibility and the hyper-clarity of a digital world are the themes of innumerable sci-fi novels and films and they never have a happy ending. Despite the over-egged emphasis on individuality, choice and existentialism supported by oblique references to Jung, Nietzsche and Freud by corporate entities that use philosophical ideas as concepts to sell products, rather than having any genuine understanding of the work, the metaverse is someone else's creation. Someone else's sandbox. Not yours. Not mine. Not ours.

Your participation in such a place profits others first and foremost, and I mean it literally profits other people in financial terms. After all, this venture would not have gotten past the boardroom if it wasn't destined to make other people incredibly rich and you and your life (virtual or otherwise) the source of all that money. The metaverse is not an egalitarian enterprise or a charitable creation: it's somewhere between a Faustian contract and a pyramid scheme. You provide the labor, you do the work, someone else gets rich. But don't worry, you'll still be able to rage against the 1% or post edgy leftist dank memes in the metaverse. Scripted resistance is permitted; non-compliance is seen as strange.

No doubt my resistance to this machine will be seen as either problematic or luddite in nature by those that screamed how good Clubhouse was. Yet I'm not completely against technological change and development. There are parts of the fintech revolution that are incredibly pragmatic: direct peer-to-peer money transfers can prevent the rent-seeking of organizations like Western Union and instead help get funds (all of them) to those who desperately need them. It can provide autonomy and control to the middle and lower classes.

In every revolution, there will be winners and losers. One person's utopia will be another's dystopia. It all just depends who and where you are: are you in the class that benefits or are you at the back of the train unable to even conceive of the front? The metaverse will be championed by the world's richest and the media's most influential. It will seem glamorous, high-end, a plaything of cocaine-fueled playboys and playgirls. It will be presented as a status symbol, a conferring of prestige and being "with it." But that is the facade; that is the hyper-reality. The truly elite people won't be using it. They will be creating the opium of the masses and leading everyone down the carpeted stairs into the den, but then closing the door and staying outside.

The affluent and better-informed children of the metaverse's CEOs will not be on the platform, either. Their parents, the creators, will be all too aware of the dangers. Just as Steve Jobs stopped his kids from using iPads, social media creators kept their family off the platforms, and Stringer Bell didn't get high on his own supply, the metaverse is created by "them" for "you."

So despite the pleas and exhortations from Zuckerberg and Chairman Bang Si-hyuck, I remain infinitely welded to reality, preferring to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Yes, it's awkward and at times deeply uncomfortable ― unbearably so. Those horrible 90 seconds of elevator interaction, bumping into someone you kind of know in a coffee shop, small talk before a meeting begins, flirting, not knowing where to look on a subway ― they all suck. But they are what make us human.

And I already have a metaverse: literature, art and music. I can lose myself in the worlds and creations of Kazuo Ishiguro, Leyland Kirby, Salvador Dali and Gustav Holst ― all infinitely deeper and richer than photoshopped NFTs of the latest collection of expressionless dancing marionettes fueling a parasocial relationship with no concern for the customer. In my existing metaverse, I can understand the human condition, explore empathy, trace emotions, forget fragmented memories and travel time and space ― all with my eyes open and my soul still mine.

Dr. David A. Tizzard (datizzard@swu.ac.kr) has a Ph.D. in Korean Studies. He is a social/cultural commentator and musician who has lived in Korea for nearly two decades. He is also the host of the Korea Deconstructed podcast, which can be found online. The views expressed in the article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial direction of The Korea Times.

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