Neal Stephenson’s, but I think it caught on due to Zuckerberg calling Facebook VR platform “the metaverse”, and it got immediately coopted by the cryptosphere (

Neal Stephenson’s, but I think it caught on due to Zuckerberg calling Facebook VR platform “the metaverse”, and it got immediately coopted by the cryptosphere (I remember seeing Decentraland first use the term, and they’re affiliated to some other big NFT players, like BAYC, so they’re definitely very good at generating hype). Roblox, Fortnite and others were already using the term for a little while, but it seems it became a larger meme after FB’s keynote https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=Metaverse https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge...