The Metaverse Is Happening Whether We Like It or Not
When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in October that the social media company was changing its name to Meta to reflect its next phase, building a virtual world called the metaverse, many of us laughed. Virtual reality headsets have many hurdles to jump before becoming ubiquitous, the metaverse will require a lot of technical achievements to become fully realized, and the timing was more than a little sketch—Facebook was all over the news due to whistleblower Frances Haugen’s leaks of the Facebook Papers. The name change and new mission seemed like a convenient way to dodge some bad press.
But Meta might make the metaverse happen by sheer force of will, and other tech companies are more than willing to participate in whatever this turns out to be. Brands—never ones to sit out a new platform they don’t understand—decided to do The Most to prove they, too, are extremely hip and ready for the metaverse! Whatever that means!
Case in point: Applebee’s recently kicked off something it calls “Metaverse Mondays” with an NFT of a burger that sold for $25. (The buyer also got a year’s worth of actual burgers for that winning bid, so at least they got something of value out of the whole thing.) Isn’t everything just… absurd? Whatever. Olive Garden, your move. Just hurry up.
