If there's one thing we know about Grimes, it's that she's very into all that futuristic tech stuff that we won't even pretend to understand. So it comes as no surprise that she has some strong opinions about the Metaverse — namely, that Facebook founder and Flat Stanley doppelgänger Mark Zuckerberg should definitely not be the one running it.
"If Zuck 'oversees the Metaverse' it is dead and people who care about art and culture are building something else," the artist wrote on Twitter today, quoting a tweet from The Independent and adding: "also this is bad art."
She elaborated: "The quality of this image alone speaks to how wildly under-qualified he is to build alternate reality, literally every indie game looks better," including a screenshot of Zuckerberg's Metaverse avatar, which does look a bit like a rejected Sims 2 prototype.
Now, for those of us who identify as uncultured swine, the Metaverse refers to the hypothetical envisioning of the internet as an immersive 3D virtual world for social connection, facilitated by the use of virtual reality and augmented reality headsets.
"The concept of the 'metaverse' as a whole has become entirely twisted by both Zuckerberg and a literal army of web3 grifters trying to sell blockchain real estate and NFTs in empty worlds," journalist Paul Tassi writes for Forbes. He argues that the closest thing to actual metaverses today are the longstanding large-scale games like Minecraft, Fortnite, Roblox or even Grand Theft Auto, which have created places online "far closer to a traditional vision of the metaverse."
But we'd be remiss to ignore the actual context of The Independent's tweet (and article), which named Zuckerberg as the overseer of "Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and the Metaverse," was about the bajillionaire's three-hour interview on known dirtbag Joe Rogan's podcast — something Grimes did not offer comment on.
Of course, her ex (and elf-ear surgery antagonist) Elon Musk being Zuckerberg's sworn enemy is some more fun context that makes this hot take from the Marie Antoinette of pop stan culture all the less surprising.
See the tweet from Grimes below.
"If Zuck 'oversees the Metaverse' it is dead and people who care about art and culture are building something else," the artist wrote on Twitter today, quoting a tweet from The Independent and adding: "also this is bad art."
She elaborated: "The quality of this image alone speaks to how wildly under-qualified he is to build alternate reality, literally every indie game looks better," including a screenshot of Zuckerberg's Metaverse avatar, which does look a bit like a rejected Sims 2 prototype.
Now, for those of us who identify as uncultured swine, the Metaverse refers to the hypothetical envisioning of the internet as an immersive 3D virtual world for social connection, facilitated by the use of virtual reality and augmented reality headsets.
"The concept of the 'metaverse' as a whole has become entirely twisted by both Zuckerberg and a literal army of web3 grifters trying to sell blockchain real estate and NFTs in empty worlds," journalist Paul Tassi writes for Forbes. He argues that the closest thing to actual metaverses today are the longstanding large-scale games like Minecraft, Fortnite, Roblox or even Grand Theft Auto, which have created places online "far closer to a traditional vision of the metaverse."
But we'd be remiss to ignore the actual context of The Independent's tweet (and article), which named Zuckerberg as the overseer of "Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and the Metaverse," was about the bajillionaire's three-hour interview on known dirtbag Joe Rogan's podcast — something Grimes did not offer comment on.
Of course, her ex (and elf-ear surgery antagonist) Elon Musk being Zuckerberg's sworn enemy is some more fun context that makes this hot take from the Marie Antoinette of pop stan culture all the less surprising.
See the tweet from Grimes below.