Metaverse- a sci-fi theme Making Rounds Lately

The word “Metaverse” may seem unfamiliar to you but you must have already gone through the context of this idea. It’s that type of idea that you get to see in all most all typical sci-fi movies or other shows – the reality converging with virtual life, broadly speaking, virtuality being more real than reality itself. It’s like all those virtual stuffs like gaming, socializing are being accomplished in a more natural way.

If you consider our current way of living as 2D than surviving in a Metaverse society can be considered as 3D. The 3D movies, some online 3D games  make us so engrossed that all those rains, fighting, adventures seem  tangible, you cannot  but be  obliged to take it as real.

Mataverse is exactly that type of concept that may make you apathetic to reality just like video games, social medias making this generation more dependent on fantasy. In the near future we may become unable to find a single person detached from this type of technological effect.

Neal Steaphenson, a sci-fi writer first included this “Metaverse” word in a novel named Snow Crash where the protagonist uses video game for his escape from real life, does shopping, socialize through his avatar which is considered as his virtual self.

Metaverse is making uproar recently as Mark Zuckarbark has announced to evolve Facebook into a metaverse company. No one totally got what exactly he meant by metaverse but we can assume that Facebook may become a stepping stone to convert this age into a fantastical age.

Mark Zuckerberg is being enthusiastic about Facebook’s new journey to enable the employees to give more  interconnected experiences as if coming straight out of sci-fi  while working with one another for the betterment of the company. He thinks it’s just a successor of internet that is possible to make true by working with other gaming, social media  companies.

In Metaverse era, we may be able to contact with anyone without even touching phones, the whole system may work only through voice recognition and we may see those holographic picture of the people that we come across these days in every sci-fi stuff with whom you are connecting ourselves. May be there will be no availability of today’s mobile phone,  computers and a bunch of other electric devices just like the techs faxes, telegrams that once made the rounds in man’s way of living  are  just a part of the evolution of science today .

In this system just putting on VR headsets we may just enter in a class, sit with others for teaching or learning even without meeting them in reality.  We may live inside this world, will be able to build our own home and other necessary stuffs, will be able to teleport things from one place to another.  You may meet your friends for sipping coffee, playing games, attending to any concerts through this system being in different parts of the world.

We have already witnessed a bit of this Metaverse as VR headsets are being improved day by day and the avatars are being more realistic.

May be I am getting overboard or maybe not.  One decade ago, who could ever imagine the way everything is being online based these days!!! In the same way isn’t it obvious that we are gonna witness a new tech revolution either in the hand of facebook or through other bunch of companies. These sci-fi stuffs always enthuse me not any less than Zukarbark so I am looking forward to facebook and others how they conquer their new milestone.

Now let’s see how the movies, different tv shows and games are portraying this stuff.

Fortnite, a online video game platform has become a global phenomenon that has been building the foundation of this Metaverse with 12.3 million people logging into it to enjoy rapper Travis Scott’s performance last year. Ariana  Grande recently  has performed inside the Fortnite. These types of concerts are being organized in different video game platforms and this type of entertainment isn’t creating any less real feelings. It seems like video game companies have already placed their steps in this metaverse thing. Literally this whole theory has totally come from video games  .

With ‘Metaverse’ another word ‘dystopian’ is being noticed by the big-brains of the world. Dystopian is a suffering of society caused by developing techs.  There are a bunch of drawbacks we can name if this era turns into metaverse era for real. If you have watched movies like Matrix, Hers, The hunger games and a bunch of other shows, then you already know what is meant by dystopian society.

Let’s see whether we will witness that type of “dystopian” universe like Matrix movie or metaverse will be used for the betterment of human lives for real. The way internet and social media affecting this generation, it’s okay for us to worry about turning internet into metaverse. Hope it will bring more benefits to the upcoming generations.

Written by Khatuna Jannat Esha, Student of EEE, University of Dhaka.