Happy Nice Mall

Zuckerberg’s Instagram feed has turned stylishly professional in recent months. He appears as an athlete engaged in elite hobbies: foil, fencing, rowing, spear throwing. In an Instagram video posted on July 4On a hydrofoil, he cuts off the water and raises an American flag to John Denver’s song “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” This summer, the paparazzi caught Zuckerberg in some bizarre entertainment scenes: towards the forest hog hunting with a group of friends wearing tactical gear and knit sneakers; surfing in the ocean, face covered with opaque white sunscreen sort of like a tropical mime. He recently released a series of videos. Facebook’s new smart glassesinvites the viewer to see with their eyes as they pilot a boat or make a move in a backyard fencing match. Now, in the keynote, Zuckerberg becomes our avatar to experience the entire metaverse.

The video probably starts in Zuckerberg’s own home. Stock music rumbles as it rolls through a beige expanse dotted with gnarled driftwood, ceramic pots, and fossilized sea urchins. As he summons us into the metaverse (simulated images of a virtual reality product that doesn’t really exist), the living room turns into a grid and a computerized fantasy version of his home emerges. Several globes, a bonsai growing from a vase and a set of costumes – a Spartan, an astronaut. Large windows overlook the kind of nature images used in screensavers that come pre-installed on the computer: tropical islands on one side, snow-capped mountains on the other.

The most prominent item in Zuckerberg’s fantasy home is a thin wall-mounted television. “You can do anything you can imagine,” Zuckerberg says. “You will experience the world in a richer way than ever before,” he promises. For the most part, though, it envisions us consuming content in antisocial ways more nuanced than ever before.

A virtual after-party that includes a virtual concert followed by virtual loot can be experienced from a relaxed position on a living room sofa. In his opening monologue, he respectfully talks about the “virtual goods” we will treasure in the metaverse and keeps them close as we move from app to app. He constantly refers to “experiences,” an idea that has become a buzzword denoting the commodification of life itself.

Yet the aesthetic of the meta-universe, with its terrifying translucent holograms, evokes the specter of death. The activity program reads like an advertisement for a virtual retirement community where isolated millennials can live out their last days, looking at what Zuckerberg calls “a look at everything you find most beautiful.” skulls.