12 ms·

Facebook/Meta asks: “Wouldn't it be nice to die?”

184 points by prawn 5y ago

PaulHoule 5y ago
That ad was pretty creepy. It's like the people involved with the "metaverse" have never heard of market research.
- JaimeThompson 5y ago
  I wonder if the selection pressure at "meta" has helped "optimize" out the PR / research people who might question such things.
- voidfunc 5y ago
  It's entirely possible it riffs with the particular market segment they are after... which to be fair, I have no clue what that is.
  - tejohnso 5y ago
    If you don't try to understand it very deeply, and maybe only pay about 20% attention to it, you might find that at the end you get a "YES!" moment when the character puts on the device and the music kicks in and he's got the little happy foot stomp going on. That's really all I got from it. Good music, good times, with the device on. Terrible times without the device. To me it's just the same old "you need this in your life" bullshit that advertising is all about.
    - omnicognate 5y ago
      The only way I can make any kind of sense of it is that the dog represents Facebook, not the viewer. And that's a very twisted and pathetic sort of sense, if so. They can't have that deep a corporate persecution complex, can they?
      - voidfunc 5y ago
        > The only way I can make any kind of sense of it is that the dog represents Facebook, not the viewer. Very meta lol.
        emerged 5y ago
        We are reaching levels of meta which shouldn’t be possible
      - version_five 5y ago
        > dog represents Facebook, not the viewer. I really hope that the ad agency is secretly making fun of Facebook and intentionally framed it this way
      - vba616 5y ago
        That's brilliant! I don't think it was supposed to be that way, but who knows what lurks in the hearts of the people who made the ad?
  - LandR 5y ago
    > It's entirely possible it riffs with the particular market segment they are after... Reddit
    - granshaw 5y ago
      What now? Reddit is incredibly diverse these days
  - scotty79 5y ago
    It kind of riffs with me. Music gives me Black Mirror vibes. In postive San Junipeiro way. There's sad descent and degradation but not of the world. Only personal. World around develops and changes leaving you behind. It changes to the point where you can have vr to feed your mind, stuck in old and damaged body, reconnecting you with your old pals with similarly aged bodies, like it's the old times. High note nostalgia towards the end. This ad is targeted at boomers and older millenials.
    - civilized 5y ago
      As an older millennial I think I speak for my entire $CONSUMER_DEMOGRAPHIC when I say this ad sucked ass.
      - scotty79 5y ago
        Very few people like being reminded of their mortality. As an older millenial who already lost a loved one and got out of the job treadmill I say I get it because awarness of mortality became my middle name. I think this tech is crap because it's to limited, but I get it.
    - r_klancer 5y ago
      Solid point. Gen X would never put up with this bullshit.
      - deleted 5y ago
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    - vba616 5y ago
      I disagree. I think it was made by millennials, aimed at Gen X or boomers, but expressed pity instead of empathy which is why people don't like it. It might be useful to compare and contrast other ads that have tried to do something similar. There was an ad a while ago for Cialis or Viagra, that said stuff along the lines of "you've reached the age of getting things done". Nothing about sex per se, just a middle-aged guy and a subtext of competence, and doing what it takes for relationships and other responsibilities. That seems to me to be focusing on something that older people take pride in, that even though they may not be physically capable of everything younger people are, they have lost some of the vanities and insecurities. It's not just saying "how sad is it that you can't get it up, you need our product".
- XorNot 5y ago
  I don't think anyone involved in metaverse knows what they're doing though. You look at VR game devs and there's been a ton of incredible, genuine creativity building compelling experiences within the limitations of the platform - there's wide understanding of the limits, what works, what doesn't etc. I have no idea what Metaverse is supposed to accomplish: what they put out doesn't look good graphically, and with ads like this one there's a whole level of just "who is this even appealing too?" On some level I think they're stuck because "live a fantasy" in VR has the problem that it's not marketable - I don't need to own virtual property when I can sculpt my own planets or whatever (speaking of, why the hell has the Black and White franchise not been resurrected in VR?)
  - PaulHoule 5y ago
    Horizon Worlds is doomed because it doesn't have any story. I've been studying theme park design and the thing that sticks out is even things like Space Mountain that are basically a thrill ride can be built to have a story that is really compelling. VR experiences like that can be really compelling but an imaginary world that is too much like this one is just a snoozer.
- throwthere 5y ago
  Somehow I doubt Facebook needs more market research.
- Herodotus38 5y ago
  The first two seconds I thought it was the same director as “Don't Hug Me I'm Scared.” There’s a very similar aesthetic with the stuffed animals.
silisili 5y ago
I feel they've lost all touch with reality. Hey, let's run an ad admitting the world sucks, in part due to companies like us, but you can escape that reality if you put our headset on. Replace that last 15 seconds with a bottle of Whiskey instead of a VR headset and the message is about the same.
- lkrubner 5y ago
  I'll take the whiskey.
  - nickpeterson 5y ago
    This declaration is rarely wrong.
  - blunte 5y ago
    And a good stereo, listening room, and nobody nearby talking.
    - dkersten 5y ago
      That sounds like a substantially better time than whatever FB is offering.
  - andrew_ 5y ago
    depends on the bottle
  - vba616 5y ago
    Some of us can't drink alcohol anymore, so I think VR whiskey is where people should be focusing efforts.
- 88913527 5y ago
  They're giving Black Mirror a run for their money.
  - DonHopkins 5y ago
version_five 5y ago
Can someone tell me, does the metaverse exist now? Like can I go and be like the wolf or squid in the commercial and wear goggles and walk around? I searched just now, and five or six articles down (after headlines like "the metaverse is stupid") I see a link that talks about what the metaverse will be, and lets me buy a headset. Is that where we're at? Why are we talking about something that's just made up, that's been made up for years. Or is there actually some product or service I can join here?
- RodgerTheGreat 5y ago
  Second Life and VRChat exist. Of course, Facebook would prefer that we imagine their metaverse will be materially transformative in some way that even they can scarcely yet imagine.
  - GianFabien 5y ago
    FB could buy Second Life. I'm sure the investors who acquired it in 2020 would be delighted with a big payday.
- aahortwwy 5y ago
  I think their product is Horizon Worlds: https://www.oculus.com/horizon-worlds/ https://www.oculus.com/horizon-worlds/
- sergiotapia 5y ago
  Not really, "Facebook Horizons" is like a cheaper knock-off version of Rec Room. Laggier, buggier and feels very very corporate. You walk around and feel stalked by these "Community Leader" facebook employees and it just feels ick. Hard to explain. I recommend you try out Rec Room. Infinitely better. I own both the index and the quest 2. The quest 2 is less powerful objectively but it's ergonomics are on point. It's so much easier to pick up and play. Yet every time I put it on I lament how it's owned and created by Facebook. What a travesty. I hope Valve makes an Index 2 and pushes VR forward again.
- GauntletWizard 5y ago
aahortwwy 5y ago
The first thing I thought of when I saw that ad was the comic strip The Greatest Gift from 2011: https://www.buttersafe.com/2011/12/22/the-greatest-gift/ https://www.buttersafe.com/2011/12/22/the-greatest-gift/
Brian_K_White 5y ago
I just can't get past the idea of trading the universe for a universe that someone owns.
- scotty79 5y ago
  This one is also mostly owned.
  - Brian_K_White 5y ago
    Not the stuff in it, the universe itself. You're sitting in your virtual bedroom, and your virtual laptop doesn't like or allow your choice of porn, or any other subject of interest. You're in your virtual work shop, and your virtual bench and tools do not approve of the device you are building, or taking apart. You're sewing a virtual dress and your virtual sewing machine doesn't allow you to make that design because it violates community standards, maybe by cultural appropriation, not that it tells you why... No community established those standards, so the term is a lie, but your virtual telephone doesn't let you bring this complaint against the owners of the universe to anyone. Taken a bit further, when you are uploaded, and the owners of the universe even own the medium you think in.
    - scotty79 5y ago
      I agree that this will be a next level of getting owned same way Facebook was next level of getting owned (in comparison to web pages and disjointed services). I vividly remember trying to send some message to a friend over Messenger and getting blocked because of something Facebook didn't like in the message. Don't quite remember what it was. Maybe a computer program, maybe a link to copyrighted content. > ... virtual sewing machine doesn't allow you to make that design because it violates community standards, maybe by cultural appropriation... In this world you can still make all the stuff you physically can if you let anyone see it you might get all sorts of backlash from "the community".
- RodgerTheGreat 5y ago
0x53 5y ago
Wow. Didn't watch the super bowl this year, so this is my first time seeing that ad. That is incredibly depressing.
KerrAvon 5y ago
The following comment from “Big Dick Nick Cage” on the post says it all. Pasting it here in full because Y combinator types need a dose of cold hard reality once in a while. — I think like all Libertarian projects, this is the rich guy's version of Going Galt. Instead of declaring themselves the Emperor of Cincinnati and a sovereign citizen, they declare that THIS world is stupid and GAY and they're going to make a NEW world on Mars/the metaverse/wherever where they don't have to deal with things like dumb ol' REGULATIONS and TAXES with the subtext that, of course, the right people will be in charge this time, which is to say, them. What is truly depressing about this generation of oligarchs is their fantasies are all from 80s sci-fi movies and aren't anything interesting. At least Carnegie built some damn libraries. At least the Gilded Age monarchs endowed universities and art galleries and other things to show their Big Shot Rich Guy fantasies. I mean, Christ, at least be a Batman villain. Drop hundred dollar bills from a helicopter over downtown just to watch the proles scramble. At least Trump ran for president. Zuck was too weird and offputting for that! Imagine being weirder and more offputting! These dudes have more money they can ever spend and still want to be the Big Shot Business Guy sitting in meetings 18 hours a day. Imagine winning the lottery and being like "Hmm, yes, I want to make everyone come into the office to sit around in a conference room and nod at me while I talk. FOR HOURS." The legacy of Bezos/Musk etc. is going to be space debris and cars that make fart noises.
- Dracophoenix 5y ago
  Aside from plenty of bad arguments in this rant, the oddest one is that it's somehow wrong for someone who's reached the pinnacle of success by society's standards to continue working hard for something he values. I'm no fan of Zuckerberg and I generally dislike defending him, but if he's spending 18 hour days directing a multinational corporation all while preventing the company from collapsing within, he's certainly earned his seat. I don't see how having the Joker run the company is preferable.
- deleted 5y ago
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- weq 5y ago
  Ahh spot on. ASPIRE to make a billion then STILL go into the OFFICE. LOL. Talk about the disease of the winner who will never actually be a winner in there own head because doing stuff and acheiving stuff doesnt make up the PTSD they harbor
Sindrome 5y ago
The vast majority of people in the world live shitty lives. Metaverse doesn't seem so bad for some.
- DonHopkins 5y ago
  PKD was all over this like a fly on shit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Stigmata_of_Palmer_Eldritch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Stigmata_of_Palmer_E... >The story begins in a future world where global temperatures have risen so high that in most of the world it is unsafe to be outside without special cooling gear during daylight hours. In a desperate bid to preserve humanity and ease population burdens on Earth, the UN has initiated a "draft" for colonizing the nearby planets, where conditions are so horrific and primitive that the unwilling colonists have fallen prey to a form of escapism involving the use of an illegal drug (Can-D) in concert with "layouts." Layouts are physical props intended to simulate a sort of alternative reality where life is easier than either the grim existence of the colonists in their marginal off-world colonies, or even Earth, where global warming has progressed to the point that Antarctica is prime vacation resort territory. The illegal drug Can-D allows people to "share" their experience of the "Perky Pat" (the name of the main female character in the simulated world) layouts. This "sharing" has caused a pseudo-religious cult or series of cults to grow up around the layouts and the use of the drug.
  - cableshaft 5y ago
    Excellent book. Might be my favorite of his besides Ubik.
    - DonHopkins 5y ago
      3SoPA and Ubik are his two best books, and also the least likely to be made into movies because they are just so weird!
- wutbrodo 5y ago
- 5y ago
cush 5y ago
I got unreasonably upset watching the Super Bowl ad. I wasn’t sure why until I read this article
- kayodelycaon 5y ago
  It was triggering for me in a couple of ways. So content warning for anyone reading, is the shit that brought all kinds of suicidal thoughts. 1. Being thrown away and having everything you love being taken from you by an uncaring world. 2. You’re about to die and it’s all going to be finally over. (Major trigger: death is the only way to find relief from the pain of existing.) 3. The only reason you don’t is because someone wants you on display. 4. Everyone ignores you. No one cares. You do not matter to anyone. You are alone. 5. The only escape from this tortured endless hell is a virtual world that is a shadow of the real thing. Of these, only the second is likely to trigger me normally. Usually I’m fine and can see this coming and pause whatever I’m watching for a second to process it. This ad completely blindsided me with five things I couldn’t process in rapid succession. It took a while to get back in my feet and not have it ruin my evening. At least I wasn’t a Bengals fan. That loss hurt to watch.
blunte 5y ago
I tend to be verbose, but then I read word explosions like this essay... TLDR: Paraphrased: Meta makes a lot of money, even when it has a bad year. And then, > Anyway, this is all kind of a long way of explaining how Meta chose to make and air this advertisement for itself during the Super Bowl on Sunday: Then TFA basically says that the ad illustrates a future where your normal life no longer exists, but you can thankfully reminisce with a friend or two, virtually -- thanks to Meta.
- thundergolfer 5y ago
  The run-on sentences are intentional. It’s style, and the author is often self-deprecating about them.
fullshark 5y ago
Wow this ad is San Junipero, down to the 80s arcade nostalgia even. That is hilarious.
- civilized 5y ago
  The world is going to be a Black Mirror episode one way or another. Here at META, our mission is to steer towards one of the more heartwarming ones.
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dragonwriter 5y ago
Pretending that an ad (especially in a medium like TV/video) has a message aimed at the rational brain and analyzing it from that assumption is a good way of generating negative emotion toward the advertised product to counteract the positive emotion it is designed to generate, but it's not a real analysis of the ad, because ads, especially video ass, aren't aimed at your rationality, they are aimed to produce emotions and disengage rationality.
marcodiego 5y ago
The internet and social networks nowadays are probably not a healthy place for people with depression or suicidal tendencies. This is strange. In the beginning, there was a feeling that the internet would be the ultimate tool to unite like-minded people. It probably is, the question is what like-minded people do when they get together. It can be the wonderful software I'm using or millions of dollars for unethical business.
- Sebb767 5y ago
  > In the beginning, there was a feeling that the internet would be the ultimate tool to unite like-minded people. It probably is, the question is what like-minded people do when they get together. It turns out that the answer is filter bubbles and Twitter mobs. Heterogeneous minds are really a good thing. But overall it's hard to say that the internet is a bad thing. Sure, it came with terrible downsides, but it also brought us as a species forward by quite a bit.
annadane 5y ago
It's incredibly clear they're only doing the Meta/Metaverse thing to a) try to avoid regulatory scrutiny (so they think; this will have the opposite effect of what they intend) b) distract the public from the toxic Facebook brand c) both (my money is on c). Zuckerberg is never ever to be trusted with anything given his history - and it shows.
bee_rider 5y ago
There is no way in hell this ad was actually written to attract people to VR. This is, like, the dystopian version of VR. The physical world crumbles around us as we live in a poor digital rendering of our nostalgia. Somebody must have been super psyched that Facebook was huffing their own farts so hard that they didn't realize this was a critique of their vision.
- germinalphrase 5y ago
  A better version of that story would really sell the addictive escapist appeal matched with the social incentives of participation (and maybe - more subtly - the coercive disincentives of non-participation) while allowing the dystopian reveal to happen gradually.
  - bee_rider 5y ago
    That would be better, but I think they've done about as well as they could while still convincing management that it is an ad.
- landhar 5y ago
  And the irony is really strong here since the term “metaverse” was coined in the context of a dystopian version of VR.
  - kadoban 5y ago
    Was it? I thought it came from Snow Crash, and the VR in that book is generally a pretty nice part of that world IIRC.
    - fknorangesite 5y ago
      > the VR in that book is generally a pretty nice part of that world Yes, that's the point: the metaverse in Snow Crash may be pretty nice, but the world outside the metaverse fucking sucks. That's the dystopia.
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cmehdy 5y ago
What is the ad supposed to mean?? What I gathered is "trade your lower half for a second chance at living your life, since the current one is a total failure, you worthless suicidal puppet". Not entirely sure how the flowchart takes me from this to an Oculus purchase though.
- paulcole 5y ago
  I just saw it as use VR to reconnect with old friends who aren’t part of your day-to-day physical life any longer. But it seems like that take is a lot less cynical than most other commenters on HN.
  - cmehdy 5y ago
    What's the point of being a life-sized plush in that context? Why is it that you're both a human giving concerts and a toy to indicate directions to people passing by? Why include a scene about getting yourself trash-compacted in a state of anhedonia? I'm completely likely to be more cynical than your average person out there since due to personal mental health issues, however none of the questions I just asked seem to have any connection at all with the blindly optimistic take you seem to be having. Not to mention that Facebook already exists for the purpose you indicated and is even owned by the same people. Presumably Mr Dog Plushie could have had the chance to reconnect with old friends already there, yet instead he was about to literally trash himself and die. How is that not alarming as hell?
  - jasonhansel 5y ago
    I think it's because the ad ignores the obvious fact that the puppet's life at the end--when it can only connect to its friends in VR--is obviously so much worse than its life at the start of the commercial, when it can perform in real life. The ad presents the Metaverse as an "upgrade" from real life, but it seems from the ad that the Metaverse is only an improvement after your life has gone seriously downhill.
  - nyokodo 5y ago
    > reconnect with old friends When I’m shown an anthropomorphized dog puppet thrown away, dropped haphazardly from a truck, put into a trash compactor, and then treated like a mannequin I’m not being primed to think “reconnect” with anyone. This is a weird depiction of despair to which Meta is the drug to pretend to escape.
1986 5y ago
Roth is an incredible diarist of modern dystopia who's always ready with a deft turn of phrase, if you enjoyed this piece at all I would highly recommend checking out his other work. He's a co-owner of Defector (where this was posted), which is essentially the worker-owned co-op spiritual sequel to Deadspin.
javajosh 5y ago
A really good piece of writing with one nice little tidbit, because it feels true: > you will never see a commercial for anything that is actually and authentically liberating while watching the Super Bowl; that space is just too expensive, and too valuable, for anything but the institutions invested in the opposite of liberation to be able to afford access to it. It feels true (with pithy, bonus), but now I'm uncertain. What does "authentically liberating" even mean? Which institutions are "authentically liberating"? What do those look like, communes? Collectives? Medical aid NGOs? Maybe more interesting: can liberation be a product?
- RodgerTheGreat 5y ago
  I am reminded of the short film More: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCeeTfsm8bk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCeeTfsm8bk
  - fennecfoxen 5y ago
    I am reminded of Fully Automated Luxury Gnosticism: https://unherd.com/2021/09/welcome-to-fully-automated-luxury-gnosticism/ https://unherd.com/2021/09/welcome-to-fully-automated-luxury...
    - JetAlone 5y ago
      It reminds me of the "Tenryuubito" from One Piece, elites who put their heads in bubbles to breathe only their own air because they are too good to breath the same air as the common folk, but its kind of the inverse. They'd like the common folk to wear the "bubble" which will inevitably convey implicit connotations of inferiority. "Nobody wants to see your face". https://media.giphy.com/media/aSeNfB1aAO7rG/giphy.gif https://media.giphy.com/media/aSeNfB1aAO7rG/giphy.gif
  - evanelias 5y ago
    I had the exact same thought! More was also re-licensed as the music video for the song "Hell bent" by Kenna, to (in my opinion) greater emotional effect: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5mmgow https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5mmgow It was played a fair bit on MTV2 late at night in the early aughts. It's entirely possible this Super Bowl commercial was made by someone who saw that video 20 years ago. A deeply depressing dystopian vision.
creakingstairs 5y ago
I've bought some Meta stocks when it dipped, as I figured they were "too big to fail" and would eventually go up. However, I've been contemplating selling all the stocks I've bought because of this and the previous ad. If these are kind of the ads that comes out after millions of dollars spent and hours of collective thinking; I don't think whatever they are building now will be appealing to people. As another comment HN have put it: they've lost all touch with reality.
- GianFabien 5y ago
  When you buy stock you stop caring about what the company does. You only care about what the market thinks about what the company does. If the stock price goes up you sell for a profit. For companies that don't pay dividends, the stock price is driven purely by the expectation that somebody will pay you more for the stock than what you paid for it.
  - creakingstairs 5y ago
    > When you buy stock you stop caring about what the company does. > You only care about what the market thinks about what the company does I’m not sure I’m getting your point. What the company does affects what the market thinks what the company does. I mean sure, feedback is not instantaneous and there have been quite a big mismatch especially recently. But I think it still comes down do execution in the end. > For companies that don't pay dividends, the stock price is driven purely by the expectation that somebody will pay you more for the stock than what you paid for it Yes this is why people buy stocks. What the company does will affect the future expectation.
- disqard 5y ago
  Like you, I seriously considered that idea (buying while it's low), but I decided not to, because that'd be like supporting that company in some way -- as if I were helping bankroll (admittedly, t a very tiny extent) its perverse vision for the future. In the end, I put my money elsewhere.
hirundo 5y ago
This is actually great as an ad for a gamified retirement village. I'd take Geezer Fortnite over bingo and shuffleboard myself, given the choice. That sounds like a Valhalla I could even look forward to visiting, on my way back to dust. I'm just not ready for Valhalla yet. So this is Facebook, the empire of targeted advertising, badly missing the target with its own advertising.
- geraldcombs 5y ago
  If Facebook in its current incarnation is any indication, the metaverse retirement village is going to be like the Matrix except they're going to harvest old people rage instead of energy.
  - JetAlone 5y ago
    I could see that. For a nominal fee they'd put retirement age Millenials and Zoomers into states as close to "brains in a jar" as they can manage. Then they'd cultivate their consciousnesses in a rage-cycle hell for profit. It gives me the same vibes as "Argent Energy" from Doom.
robbrown451 5y ago
I liked the ad. (even though I dislike Facebook and Zuckerburg with at least a bit of passion) I see a ton of comments about how it encourages people to escape the depressing real world. How many of you play deeply immersive video games? I don't, but so many of my friends do. It depresses me sometimes, for the same reason that people find that video depressing. I really don't see the difference. That's not to say immersive video games are bad, or even that taking a break from often-shitty reality is a bad thing. I just think perspective and balance is needed. My biggest issue with the concept of Meta-verse (which to me is nothing different Second Life almost 20 years ago, albeit the tech has improved), is that it will be owned by a company that values engagement so much higher than the overall well-being of its users. If it was anyone but Facebook (and it's still freaking Facebook, despite their renaming of the company when they were in the middle of a publicity crisis), I'd be a lot more excited about it. Still, whoever put this video together deserves some kudos. I thought it was very well done. I think the "wouldn't it be nice to die?" angle was undeserved and highly biased.
- 0x4d464d48 5y ago
  "I don't, but so many of my friends do. It depresses me sometimes, for the same reason that people find that video depressing. I really don't see the difference." The difference is I felt guilty as hell when I sacricied things I could look forward to in my real life day for a one day 20 hour DOTA binge. The greivance the author highlights in the article that Meta seems to paint a picture where the Metaverse is the only palatable escape from a cruel, indifferent world that has no place for you. Me playing too much DOTA -> wasting time that couldve been put to better use making a better more fulfilling life for myself in exchange for a dopamine hit. Me engaing with the Metaverse too much -> No such thing. You're real life is depressing, intractable and out of your control. This is the last place you'll be able to find any semblance of joy. Thats not to say that any engagement with the Metaverse will be inherantly unhealthy. If Facebook's history of increasing user engagement with little to no scruples is any indication I don't blame people for being concerned about a dangerous flavor of escapism being promoted.
  - robbrown451 5y ago
ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
> But if you were where Meta currently is, which is presiding over a hugely profitable but ungovernable, unwieldy, widely detested derangement engine ruled by a sociopathic algorithm and an overbearing cadre of psychotic power users, reviled and abandoned by younger users and in every sense but the most literal a haunted space station overrun by goblins and skunks, you too would want to live in the future. Wins the Internet. Story time: I just deleted my "Featured Collection." Facebook scraped my GitHub page for my face, and automatically attached it to my account (where I seldom go, so it's probably been there, for some time), as full public (everything else on my account is "friends-only"). So, they grabbed an image of me that I NEVER UPLOADED TO FACEBOOK, and then shared it as "full public," on my timeline. I'm both impressed, and horrified.
daniel-cussen 5y ago
There is life after death. I confirm it.
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slibhb 5y ago
The interesting thing about the ad is that it's aimed at people in their 40s and older who are nostalgic for their youth. My assumption is that no one over 40 has absolutely any interest in VR (sample size: my parents).
- tkgally 5y ago
  One more person for your sample: I’m sixty-four, and I have next-to-zero interest in virtual reality. Maybe if I had gotten into playing video games at some point I could see the attraction, but I never did so I don’t. There is one possible use case, though, that I find interesting. For the past two years, I’ve been teaching university classes and taking part in meetings using Zoom. While in general it’s gone okay, an interface that more closely approximates people talking with each other in a room would be nice. I would want that interface to be on a regular computer monitor, though; I don’t want to have to wear goggles. I should also mention that I didn’t understand the point of that Facebook ad until I read the discussion of it here. What a bizarre video.
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alphabet9000 5y ago
> The ad is absolutely state of the art it looked like a generic commercial from a generic company struggling to remain relevant. if a different company's logo had appeared at the end it would have made the same amount of sense... best buy, chuck e cheese, you name it. the soundtrack has the same 'hey i remember the 80s' desperation reminiscent of a wal mart commercial from 3 years ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxxORRqYW-Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxxORRqYW-Y
labrador 5y ago
Problem #1: Never mind the Metaverse, I bought an Oculus Quest and all I can say is one of Steve Jobs signature terms: "It's brain dead." Imagine you excitedly get your glasses charged up and turned on and then you are confronted with connecting to the wireless network, when you don't know how to work the controllers and finding the wireless setup is disorienting, especially since it's not clear what the buttons do so you don't even know how to select anything. It's ridiculous that this is your first very frustrating experience with VR. Solution: Put a small panel on the outside like most printers have for connecting to the wireless or allow controlling the headset from a PC so you can use your normal mouse and keyboard (a phone would work too) to setup the device Problem #2: My unit won't update. I am way behind on OS versions. I can connect to the internet and watch YouTube videos. I can get to the screen with an update button, but it just spins for days without doing anything. A google search reveals I am not the only one. It almost feels malicious, like Meta is trying to force me to buy a Quest 2 to get updated. Solution: Allow a backup update process by connecting thru USB to a PC at least. I'm sure there are other OS update methods Meta could provide. Problem #3: YouTube has 180 and 360 videos but they stopped working and only look good on a movie screen type billboard that no longer fills the view Solution: This may be fixed if I can get the glasses to update I'll wait until Apple or anyone else comes out with something because I'm excited by VR but I refuse to buy another Quest. I don't trust Meta to get it even close to right.
- cgriswald 5y ago
  My experience: I have an older processor that lacks something the Oculus wants. Even though Oculus runs fine on my system I get a nice big floating unremovable notification that Oculus can’t run on my system any time I use the device. The only solution I found online was a registry hack that convinces the Oculus I’m running a different processor.
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sleightofmind 5y ago
There is something quite satisfying about stumbling on a superbly-written, over-the-top rant after a long drought. Rants are just so much fun when they're done by a competent wordsmith with a great sense of sarcasm. It probably helps that I mostly buy into his thesis. And how can you not warm to a guy who describes himself as, "Editor/owner/flannel doofus"? Loved this line: "the haunted space station that generates the profits and luridly deranges America’s aunts..." But truth be told, a couple of my aunts didn't need much help from Facebook. After nearly seventy years, I can assure you that an abundance of folks with gullibility to spare and kooky perceptions of reality has never depended on greedy corporations, if indeed a corporation can be greedy -- I've always thought greed was more a characteristic of people and a few other animals. Still, just a great rant. Many thanks!
scotty79 5y ago
> Everything you have and everyone you care about will be taken from you by forces beyond your control, the ad says. You will be surplus to requirements, first fungible and ridiculous and then literally disposable. You will lose everything. This is literally what aging is. You are gradually worth less and less and number of people to whom you are worth anything shrinks. Because of the changing world and because of what it means to be aging human. Even your own grandkids, if you ever have any, will be barely giving a sh_t about you in a best case scenario. This ad is for aging millenials like Mark himself. It's pure nolstalgia and promise of reliving better times.
- vba616 5y ago
  It reeks of pity, by younger people who haven't accepted their own mortality and can't empathize or see any value in aging. Millennials probably need at least another decade on average to get it.
  - scotty79 5y ago
    Millennials are now old enough that they grew out of fantasy of never getting old but haven't yet grew into the fantasy of believing that aging has some value. That aging it's something worth doing. Something that we wouldn't get rid of in blink of an eye if we could.
    - vba616 5y ago
      >haven't yet grew into the fantasy of believing that aging has some value Believing that aging has no value is all well and good, unless you want to sell things to old people.
nathanaldensr 5y ago
The font that website uses is horrendous. My eyes jittered so much trying to read it I simply gave up.
picsao 5y ago
awisema 5y ago
In 1909 E.M. Forster published “The Machine Stops” a dystopian vision of a world where nobody ever leaves their individual rooms, and instead interacts solely through “the machine.” 1909! Neuromancer, The Matrix, the list goes on… Plenty of prior art, and somebody still thinks this is a good idea!?
rdiddly 5y ago
Great piece that satisfies my Facebook blood-lust. Seeing the ad for the first time is definitely a WTF experience too. A bit too honest in spite of itself. Are they tone-deaf as usual, or actually trying to normalize a world that just sort of routinely and casually screws you over and discards and wastes you? Like hey when the world inevitably fucks you and finally you're nothing but a shadow of your former self, we'll be here to help you relive the old times. (With no genitals of course.) I dunno, it's too weird! Unsettling. Hard to believe someone thought it was a good idea.
vba616 5y ago
I recently saw an ad on Facebook or Twitter for Amazon Alexa that said "what if Alexa could read minds?" and went on to dramatize the hypothetical. I was absolutely gobsmacked as they say, it took me several minutes to come to terms with the idea that this was a genuine ad, not a parody, supposed to promote feelings of goodwill towards an always-listening assistant. Perhaps their next ad will say "what if Alexa was linked directly to counterterrorism authorities" and dramatize something like the end of 1984...and then say "good thing it isn't yet, because the details need a bit of work".
- Rebelgecko 5y ago
  If you think that's bad, you clearly haven't seen Amazon's ads about using Alexa to perform sexual harassment
imtringued 5y ago
This company bought their way into the VR industry by buying Occulus, why haven't they bought VR chat and second life and merged the two instead of embarassing themselves? Thank god they didn't. Seeing this company fail at least tells us that they could not ruin VR as much as people feared.
t8e56vd4ih 5y ago
being someone who feels like such a puppet at the moment this "ad" strikes me as particularly unpleasant to watch.

184 points by prawn 5y ago

PaulHoule 5y ago

That ad was pretty creepy. It's like the people involved with the "metaverse" have never heard of market research.

JaimeThompson 5y ago
I wonder if the selection pressure at "meta" has helped "optimize" out the PR / research people who might question such things.
voidfunc 5y ago
It's entirely possible it riffs with the particular market segment they are after... which to be fair, I have no clue what that is.
- tejohnso 5y ago
  If you don't try to understand it very deeply, and maybe only pay about 20% attention to it, you might find that at the end you get a "YES!" moment when the character puts on the device and the music kicks in and he's got the little happy foot stomp going on. That's really all I got from it. Good music, good times, with the device on. Terrible times without the device. To me it's just the same old "you need this in your life" bullshit that advertising is all about.
  - omnicognate 5y ago
    The only way I can make any kind of sense of it is that the dog represents Facebook, not the viewer. And that's a very twisted and pathetic sort of sense, if so. They can't have that deep a corporate persecution complex, can they?
    - voidfunc 5y ago
      > The only way I can make any kind of sense of it is that the dog represents Facebook, not the viewer. Very meta lol.
      - emerged 5y ago
        We are reaching levels of meta which shouldn’t be possible
    - version_five 5y ago
      > dog represents Facebook, not the viewer. I really hope that the ad agency is secretly making fun of Facebook and intentionally framed it this way
    - vba616 5y ago
      That's brilliant! I don't think it was supposed to be that way, but who knows what lurks in the hearts of the people who made the ad?
- LandR 5y ago
  > It's entirely possible it riffs with the particular market segment they are after... Reddit
  - granshaw 5y ago
    What now? Reddit is incredibly diverse these days
- scotty79 5y ago
  It kind of riffs with me. Music gives me Black Mirror vibes. In postive San Junipeiro way. There's sad descent and degradation but not of the world. Only personal. World around develops and changes leaving you behind. It changes to the point where you can have vr to feed your mind, stuck in old and damaged body, reconnecting you with your old pals with similarly aged bodies, like it's the old times. High note nostalgia towards the end. This ad is targeted at boomers and older millenials.
  - civilized 5y ago
    As an older millennial I think I speak for my entire $CONSUMER_DEMOGRAPHIC when I say this ad sucked ass.
    - scotty79 5y ago
      Very few people like being reminded of their mortality. As an older millenial who already lost a loved one and got out of the job treadmill I say I get it because awarness of mortality became my middle name. I think this tech is crap because it's to limited, but I get it.
  - r_klancer 5y ago
    Solid point. Gen X would never put up with this bullshit.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - vba616 5y ago
    I disagree. I think it was made by millennials, aimed at Gen X or boomers, but expressed pity instead of empathy which is why people don't like it. It might be useful to compare and contrast other ads that have tried to do something similar. There was an ad a while ago for Cialis or Viagra, that said stuff along the lines of "you've reached the age of getting things done". Nothing about sex per se, just a middle-aged guy and a subtext of competence, and doing what it takes for relationships and other responsibilities. That seems to me to be focusing on something that older people take pride in, that even though they may not be physically capable of everything younger people are, they have lost some of the vanities and insecurities. It's not just saying "how sad is it that you can't get it up, you need our product".
XorNot 5y ago
I don't think anyone involved in metaverse knows what they're doing though. You look at VR game devs and there's been a ton of incredible, genuine creativity building compelling experiences within the limitations of the platform - there's wide understanding of the limits, what works, what doesn't etc. I have no idea what Metaverse is supposed to accomplish: what they put out doesn't look good graphically, and with ads like this one there's a whole level of just "who is this even appealing too?" On some level I think they're stuck because "live a fantasy" in VR has the problem that it's not marketable - I don't need to own virtual property when I can sculpt my own planets or whatever (speaking of, why the hell has the Black and White franchise not been resurrected in VR?)
- PaulHoule 5y ago
  Horizon Worlds is doomed because it doesn't have any story. I've been studying theme park design and the thing that sticks out is even things like Space Mountain that are basically a thrill ride can be built to have a story that is really compelling. VR experiences like that can be really compelling but an imaginary world that is too much like this one is just a snoozer.
throwthere 5y ago
Somehow I doubt Facebook needs more market research.
Herodotus38 5y ago
The first two seconds I thought it was the same director as “Don't Hug Me I'm Scared.” There’s a very similar aesthetic with the stuffed animals.

silisili 5y ago

I feel they've lost all touch with reality. Hey, let's run an ad admitting the world sucks, in part due to companies like us, but you can escape that reality if you put our headset on. Replace that last 15 seconds with a bottle of Whiskey instead of a VR headset and the message is about the same.

lkrubner 5y ago
I'll take the whiskey.
- nickpeterson 5y ago
  This declaration is rarely wrong.
- blunte 5y ago
  And a good stereo, listening room, and nobody nearby talking.
  - dkersten 5y ago
    That sounds like a substantially better time than whatever FB is offering.
- andrew_ 5y ago
  depends on the bottle
- vba616 5y ago
  Some of us can't drink alcohol anymore, so I think VR whiskey is where people should be focusing efforts.
88913527 5y ago
They're giving Black Mirror a run for their money.
- DonHopkins 5y ago

version_five 5y ago

Can someone tell me, does the metaverse exist now? Like can I go and be like the wolf or squid in the commercial and wear goggles and walk around? I searched just now, and five or six articles down (after headlines like "the metaverse is stupid") I see a link that talks about what the metaverse will be, and lets me buy a headset. Is that where we're at? Why are we talking about something that's just made up, that's been made up for years. Or is there actually some product or service I can join here?

RodgerTheGreat 5y ago
Second Life and VRChat exist. Of course, Facebook would prefer that we imagine their metaverse will be materially transformative in some way that even they can scarcely yet imagine.
- GianFabien 5y ago
  FB could buy Second Life. I'm sure the investors who acquired it in 2020 would be delighted with a big payday.
aahortwwy 5y ago
I think their product is Horizon Worlds: https://www.oculus.com/horizon-worlds/ https://www.oculus.com/horizon-worlds/
sergiotapia 5y ago
Not really, "Facebook Horizons" is like a cheaper knock-off version of Rec Room. Laggier, buggier and feels very very corporate. You walk around and feel stalked by these "Community Leader" facebook employees and it just feels ick. Hard to explain. I recommend you try out Rec Room. Infinitely better. I own both the index and the quest 2. The quest 2 is less powerful objectively but it's ergonomics are on point. It's so much easier to pick up and play. Yet every time I put it on I lament how it's owned and created by Facebook. What a travesty. I hope Valve makes an Index 2 and pushes VR forward again.
GauntletWizard 5y ago

aahortwwy 5y ago

The first thing I thought of when I saw that ad was the comic strip The Greatest Gift from 2011: https://www.buttersafe.com/2011/12/22/the-greatest-gift/ https://www.buttersafe.com/2011/12/22/the-greatest-gift/

Brian_K_White 5y ago

I just can't get past the idea of trading the universe for a universe that someone owns.

scotty79 5y ago
This one is also mostly owned.
- Brian_K_White 5y ago
  Not the stuff in it, the universe itself. You're sitting in your virtual bedroom, and your virtual laptop doesn't like or allow your choice of porn, or any other subject of interest. You're in your virtual work shop, and your virtual bench and tools do not approve of the device you are building, or taking apart. You're sewing a virtual dress and your virtual sewing machine doesn't allow you to make that design because it violates community standards, maybe by cultural appropriation, not that it tells you why... No community established those standards, so the term is a lie, but your virtual telephone doesn't let you bring this complaint against the owners of the universe to anyone. Taken a bit further, when you are uploaded, and the owners of the universe even own the medium you think in.
  - scotty79 5y ago
    I agree that this will be a next level of getting owned same way Facebook was next level of getting owned (in comparison to web pages and disjointed services). I vividly remember trying to send some message to a friend over Messenger and getting blocked because of something Facebook didn't like in the message. Don't quite remember what it was. Maybe a computer program, maybe a link to copyrighted content. > ... virtual sewing machine doesn't allow you to make that design because it violates community standards, maybe by cultural appropriation... In this world you can still make all the stuff you physically can if you let anyone see it you might get all sorts of backlash from "the community".
RodgerTheGreat 5y ago

0x53 5y ago

Wow. Didn't watch the super bowl this year, so this is my first time seeing that ad. That is incredibly depressing.

KerrAvon 5y ago

The following comment from “Big Dick Nick Cage” on the post says it all. Pasting it here in full because Y combinator types need a dose of cold hard reality once in a while. — I think like all Libertarian projects, this is the rich guy's version of Going Galt. Instead of declaring themselves the Emperor of Cincinnati and a sovereign citizen, they declare that THIS world is stupid and GAY and they're going to make a NEW world on Mars/the metaverse/wherever where they don't have to deal with things like dumb ol' REGULATIONS and TAXES with the subtext that, of course, the right people will be in charge this time, which is to say, them. What is truly depressing about this generation of oligarchs is their fantasies are all from 80s sci-fi movies and aren't anything interesting. At least Carnegie built some damn libraries. At least the Gilded Age monarchs endowed universities and art galleries and other things to show their Big Shot Rich Guy fantasies. I mean, Christ, at least be a Batman villain. Drop hundred dollar bills from a helicopter over downtown just to watch the proles scramble. At least Trump ran for president. Zuck was too weird and offputting for that! Imagine being weirder and more offputting! These dudes have more money they can ever spend and still want to be the Big Shot Business Guy sitting in meetings 18 hours a day. Imagine winning the lottery and being like "Hmm, yes, I want to make everyone come into the office to sit around in a conference room and nod at me while I talk. FOR HOURS." The legacy of Bezos/Musk etc. is going to be space debris and cars that make fart noises.

Dracophoenix 5y ago
Aside from plenty of bad arguments in this rant, the oddest one is that it's somehow wrong for someone who's reached the pinnacle of success by society's standards to continue working hard for something he values. I'm no fan of Zuckerberg and I generally dislike defending him, but if he's spending 18 hour days directing a multinational corporation all while preventing the company from collapsing within, he's certainly earned his seat. I don't see how having the Joker run the company is preferable.
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weq 5y ago
Ahh spot on. ASPIRE to make a billion then STILL go into the OFFICE. LOL. Talk about the disease of the winner who will never actually be a winner in there own head because doing stuff and acheiving stuff doesnt make up the PTSD they harbor

Sindrome 5y ago

The vast majority of people in the world live shitty lives. Metaverse doesn't seem so bad for some.

DonHopkins 5y ago
PKD was all over this like a fly on shit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Stigmata_of_Palmer_Eldritch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Stigmata_of_Palmer_E... >The story begins in a future world where global temperatures have risen so high that in most of the world it is unsafe to be outside without special cooling gear during daylight hours. In a desperate bid to preserve humanity and ease population burdens on Earth, the UN has initiated a "draft" for colonizing the nearby planets, where conditions are so horrific and primitive that the unwilling colonists have fallen prey to a form of escapism involving the use of an illegal drug (Can-D) in concert with "layouts." Layouts are physical props intended to simulate a sort of alternative reality where life is easier than either the grim existence of the colonists in their marginal off-world colonies, or even Earth, where global warming has progressed to the point that Antarctica is prime vacation resort territory. The illegal drug Can-D allows people to "share" their experience of the "Perky Pat" (the name of the main female character in the simulated world) layouts. This "sharing" has caused a pseudo-religious cult or series of cults to grow up around the layouts and the use of the drug.
- cableshaft 5y ago
  Excellent book. Might be my favorite of his besides Ubik.
  - DonHopkins 5y ago
    3SoPA and Ubik are his two best books, and also the least likely to be made into movies because they are just so weird!
wutbrodo 5y ago
5y ago

cush 5y ago

I got unreasonably upset watching the Super Bowl ad. I wasn’t sure why until I read this article

kayodelycaon 5y ago
It was triggering for me in a couple of ways. So content warning for anyone reading, is the shit that brought all kinds of suicidal thoughts. 1. Being thrown away and having everything you love being taken from you by an uncaring world. 2. You’re about to die and it’s all going to be finally over. (Major trigger: death is the only way to find relief from the pain of existing.) 3. The only reason you don’t is because someone wants you on display. 4. Everyone ignores you. No one cares. You do not matter to anyone. You are alone. 5. The only escape from this tortured endless hell is a virtual world that is a shadow of the real thing. Of these, only the second is likely to trigger me normally. Usually I’m fine and can see this coming and pause whatever I’m watching for a second to process it. This ad completely blindsided me with five things I couldn’t process in rapid succession. It took a while to get back in my feet and not have it ruin my evening. At least I wasn’t a Bengals fan. That loss hurt to watch.

blunte 5y ago

I tend to be verbose, but then I read word explosions like this essay... TLDR: Paraphrased: Meta makes a lot of money, even when it has a bad year. And then, > Anyway, this is all kind of a long way of explaining how Meta chose to make and air this advertisement for itself during the Super Bowl on Sunday: Then TFA basically says that the ad illustrates a future where your normal life no longer exists, but you can thankfully reminisce with a friend or two, virtually -- thanks to Meta.

thundergolfer 5y ago
The run-on sentences are intentional. It’s style, and the author is often self-deprecating about them.

fullshark 5y ago

Wow this ad is San Junipero, down to the 80s arcade nostalgia even. That is hilarious.

civilized 5y ago
The world is going to be a Black Mirror episode one way or another. Here at META, our mission is to steer towards one of the more heartwarming ones.

deleted 5y ago

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dragonwriter 5y ago

Pretending that an ad (especially in a medium like TV/video) has a message aimed at the rational brain and analyzing it from that assumption is a good way of generating negative emotion toward the advertised product to counteract the positive emotion it is designed to generate, but it's not a real analysis of the ad, because ads, especially video ass, aren't aimed at your rationality, they are aimed to produce emotions and disengage rationality.

marcodiego 5y ago

The internet and social networks nowadays are probably not a healthy place for people with depression or suicidal tendencies. This is strange. In the beginning, there was a feeling that the internet would be the ultimate tool to unite like-minded people. It probably is, the question is what like-minded people do when they get together. It can be the wonderful software I'm using or millions of dollars for unethical business.

Sebb767 5y ago
> In the beginning, there was a feeling that the internet would be the ultimate tool to unite like-minded people. It probably is, the question is what like-minded people do when they get together. It turns out that the answer is filter bubbles and Twitter mobs. Heterogeneous minds are really a good thing. But overall it's hard to say that the internet is a bad thing. Sure, it came with terrible downsides, but it also brought us as a species forward by quite a bit.

annadane 5y ago

It's incredibly clear they're only doing the Meta/Metaverse thing to a) try to avoid regulatory scrutiny (so they think; this will have the opposite effect of what they intend) b) distract the public from the toxic Facebook brand c) both (my money is on c). Zuckerberg is never ever to be trusted with anything given his history - and it shows.

bee_rider 5y ago

There is no way in hell this ad was actually written to attract people to VR. This is, like, the dystopian version of VR. The physical world crumbles around us as we live in a poor digital rendering of our nostalgia. Somebody must have been super psyched that Facebook was huffing their own farts so hard that they didn't realize this was a critique of their vision.

germinalphrase 5y ago
A better version of that story would really sell the addictive escapist appeal matched with the social incentives of participation (and maybe - more subtly - the coercive disincentives of non-participation) while allowing the dystopian reveal to happen gradually.
- bee_rider 5y ago
  That would be better, but I think they've done about as well as they could while still convincing management that it is an ad.
landhar 5y ago
And the irony is really strong here since the term “metaverse” was coined in the context of a dystopian version of VR.
- kadoban 5y ago
  Was it? I thought it came from Snow Crash, and the VR in that book is generally a pretty nice part of that world IIRC.
  - fknorangesite 5y ago
    > the VR in that book is generally a pretty nice part of that world Yes, that's the point: the metaverse in Snow Crash may be pretty nice, but the world outside the metaverse fucking sucks. That's the dystopia.

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cmehdy 5y ago

What is the ad supposed to mean?? What I gathered is "trade your lower half for a second chance at living your life, since the current one is a total failure, you worthless suicidal puppet". Not entirely sure how the flowchart takes me from this to an Oculus purchase though.

paulcole 5y ago
I just saw it as use VR to reconnect with old friends who aren’t part of your day-to-day physical life any longer. But it seems like that take is a lot less cynical than most other commenters on HN.
- cmehdy 5y ago
  What's the point of being a life-sized plush in that context? Why is it that you're both a human giving concerts and a toy to indicate directions to people passing by? Why include a scene about getting yourself trash-compacted in a state of anhedonia? I'm completely likely to be more cynical than your average person out there since due to personal mental health issues, however none of the questions I just asked seem to have any connection at all with the blindly optimistic take you seem to be having. Not to mention that Facebook already exists for the purpose you indicated and is even owned by the same people. Presumably Mr Dog Plushie could have had the chance to reconnect with old friends already there, yet instead he was about to literally trash himself and die. How is that not alarming as hell?
- jasonhansel 5y ago
  I think it's because the ad ignores the obvious fact that the puppet's life at the end--when it can only connect to its friends in VR--is obviously so much worse than its life at the start of the commercial, when it can perform in real life. The ad presents the Metaverse as an "upgrade" from real life, but it seems from the ad that the Metaverse is only an improvement after your life has gone seriously downhill.
- nyokodo 5y ago
  > reconnect with old friends When I’m shown an anthropomorphized dog puppet thrown away, dropped haphazardly from a truck, put into a trash compactor, and then treated like a mannequin I’m not being primed to think “reconnect” with anyone. This is a weird depiction of despair to which Meta is the drug to pretend to escape.

1986 5y ago

Roth is an incredible diarist of modern dystopia who's always ready with a deft turn of phrase, if you enjoyed this piece at all I would highly recommend checking out his other work. He's a co-owner of Defector (where this was posted), which is essentially the worker-owned co-op spiritual sequel to Deadspin.

javajosh 5y ago

A really good piece of writing with one nice little tidbit, because it feels true: > you will never see a commercial for anything that is actually and authentically liberating while watching the Super Bowl; that space is just too expensive, and too valuable, for anything but the institutions invested in the opposite of liberation to be able to afford access to it. It feels true (with pithy, bonus), but now I'm uncertain. What does "authentically liberating" even mean? Which institutions are "authentically liberating"? What do those look like, communes? Collectives? Medical aid NGOs? Maybe more interesting: can liberation be a product?

RodgerTheGreat 5y ago
I am reminded of the short film More: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCeeTfsm8bk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCeeTfsm8bk
- fennecfoxen 5y ago
  I am reminded of Fully Automated Luxury Gnosticism: https://unherd.com/2021/09/welcome-to-fully-automated-luxury-gnosticism/ https://unherd.com/2021/09/welcome-to-fully-automated-luxury...
  - JetAlone 5y ago
    It reminds me of the "Tenryuubito" from One Piece, elites who put their heads in bubbles to breathe only their own air because they are too good to breath the same air as the common folk, but its kind of the inverse. They'd like the common folk to wear the "bubble" which will inevitably convey implicit connotations of inferiority. "Nobody wants to see your face". https://media.giphy.com/media/aSeNfB1aAO7rG/giphy.gif https://media.giphy.com/media/aSeNfB1aAO7rG/giphy.gif
- evanelias 5y ago
  I had the exact same thought! More was also re-licensed as the music video for the song "Hell bent" by Kenna, to (in my opinion) greater emotional effect: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5mmgow https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5mmgow It was played a fair bit on MTV2 late at night in the early aughts. It's entirely possible this Super Bowl commercial was made by someone who saw that video 20 years ago. A deeply depressing dystopian vision.

creakingstairs 5y ago

I've bought some Meta stocks when it dipped, as I figured they were "too big to fail" and would eventually go up. However, I've been contemplating selling all the stocks I've bought because of this and the previous ad. If these are kind of the ads that comes out after millions of dollars spent and hours of collective thinking; I don't think whatever they are building now will be appealing to people. As another comment HN have put it: they've lost all touch with reality.

GianFabien 5y ago
When you buy stock you stop caring about what the company does. You only care about what the market thinks about what the company does. If the stock price goes up you sell for a profit. For companies that don't pay dividends, the stock price is driven purely by the expectation that somebody will pay you more for the stock than what you paid for it.
- creakingstairs 5y ago
  > When you buy stock you stop caring about what the company does. > You only care about what the market thinks about what the company does I’m not sure I’m getting your point. What the company does affects what the market thinks what the company does. I mean sure, feedback is not instantaneous and there have been quite a big mismatch especially recently. But I think it still comes down do execution in the end. > For companies that don't pay dividends, the stock price is driven purely by the expectation that somebody will pay you more for the stock than what you paid for it Yes this is why people buy stocks. What the company does will affect the future expectation.
disqard 5y ago
Like you, I seriously considered that idea (buying while it's low), but I decided not to, because that'd be like supporting that company in some way -- as if I were helping bankroll (admittedly, t a very tiny extent) its perverse vision for the future. In the end, I put my money elsewhere.

hirundo 5y ago

This is actually great as an ad for a gamified retirement village. I'd take Geezer Fortnite over bingo and shuffleboard myself, given the choice. That sounds like a Valhalla I could even look forward to visiting, on my way back to dust. I'm just not ready for Valhalla yet. So this is Facebook, the empire of targeted advertising, badly missing the target with its own advertising.

geraldcombs 5y ago
If Facebook in its current incarnation is any indication, the metaverse retirement village is going to be like the Matrix except they're going to harvest old people rage instead of energy.
- JetAlone 5y ago
  I could see that. For a nominal fee they'd put retirement age Millenials and Zoomers into states as close to "brains in a jar" as they can manage. Then they'd cultivate their consciousnesses in a rage-cycle hell for profit. It gives me the same vibes as "Argent Energy" from Doom.

robbrown451 5y ago

I liked the ad. (even though I dislike Facebook and Zuckerburg with at least a bit of passion) I see a ton of comments about how it encourages people to escape the depressing real world. How many of you play deeply immersive video games? I don't, but so many of my friends do. It depresses me sometimes, for the same reason that people find that video depressing. I really don't see the difference. That's not to say immersive video games are bad, or even that taking a break from often-shitty reality is a bad thing. I just think perspective and balance is needed. My biggest issue with the concept of Meta-verse (which to me is nothing different Second Life almost 20 years ago, albeit the tech has improved), is that it will be owned by a company that values engagement so much higher than the overall well-being of its users. If it was anyone but Facebook (and it's still freaking Facebook, despite their renaming of the company when they were in the middle of a publicity crisis), I'd be a lot more excited about it. Still, whoever put this video together deserves some kudos. I thought it was very well done. I think the "wouldn't it be nice to die?" angle was undeserved and highly biased.

0x4d464d48 5y ago
"I don't, but so many of my friends do. It depresses me sometimes, for the same reason that people find that video depressing. I really don't see the difference." The difference is I felt guilty as hell when I sacricied things I could look forward to in my real life day for a one day 20 hour DOTA binge. The greivance the author highlights in the article that Meta seems to paint a picture where the Metaverse is the only palatable escape from a cruel, indifferent world that has no place for you. Me playing too much DOTA -> wasting time that couldve been put to better use making a better more fulfilling life for myself in exchange for a dopamine hit. Me engaing with the Metaverse too much -> No such thing. You're real life is depressing, intractable and out of your control. This is the last place you'll be able to find any semblance of joy. Thats not to say that any engagement with the Metaverse will be inherantly unhealthy. If Facebook's history of increasing user engagement with little to no scruples is any indication I don't blame people for being concerned about a dangerous flavor of escapism being promoted.
- robbrown451 5y ago

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

> But if you were where Meta currently is, which is presiding over a hugely profitable but ungovernable, unwieldy, widely detested derangement engine ruled by a sociopathic algorithm and an overbearing cadre of psychotic power users, reviled and abandoned by younger users and in every sense but the most literal a haunted space station overrun by goblins and skunks, you too would want to live in the future. Wins the Internet. Story time: I just deleted my "Featured Collection." Facebook scraped my GitHub page for my face, and automatically attached it to my account (where I seldom go, so it's probably been there, for some time), as full public (everything else on my account is "friends-only"). So, they grabbed an image of me that I NEVER UPLOADED TO FACEBOOK, and then shared it as "full public," on my timeline. I'm both impressed, and horrified.

daniel-cussen 5y ago

There is life after death. I confirm it.

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slibhb 5y ago

The interesting thing about the ad is that it's aimed at people in their 40s and older who are nostalgic for their youth. My assumption is that no one over 40 has absolutely any interest in VR (sample size: my parents).

tkgally 5y ago
One more person for your sample: I’m sixty-four, and I have next-to-zero interest in virtual reality. Maybe if I had gotten into playing video games at some point I could see the attraction, but I never did so I don’t. There is one possible use case, though, that I find interesting. For the past two years, I’ve been teaching university classes and taking part in meetings using Zoom. While in general it’s gone okay, an interface that more closely approximates people talking with each other in a room would be nice. I would want that interface to be on a regular computer monitor, though; I don’t want to have to wear goggles. I should also mention that I didn’t understand the point of that Facebook ad until I read the discussion of it here. What a bizarre video.

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alphabet9000 5y ago

> The ad is absolutely state of the art it looked like a generic commercial from a generic company struggling to remain relevant. if a different company's logo had appeared at the end it would have made the same amount of sense... best buy, chuck e cheese, you name it. the soundtrack has the same 'hey i remember the 80s' desperation reminiscent of a wal mart commercial from 3 years ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxxORRqYW-Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxxORRqYW-Y

labrador 5y ago

Problem #1: Never mind the Metaverse, I bought an Oculus Quest and all I can say is one of Steve Jobs signature terms: "It's brain dead." Imagine you excitedly get your glasses charged up and turned on and then you are confronted with connecting to the wireless network, when you don't know how to work the controllers and finding the wireless setup is disorienting, especially since it's not clear what the buttons do so you don't even know how to select anything. It's ridiculous that this is your first very frustrating experience with VR. Solution: Put a small panel on the outside like most printers have for connecting to the wireless or allow controlling the headset from a PC so you can use your normal mouse and keyboard (a phone would work too) to setup the device Problem #2: My unit won't update. I am way behind on OS versions. I can connect to the internet and watch YouTube videos. I can get to the screen with an update button, but it just spins for days without doing anything. A google search reveals I am not the only one. It almost feels malicious, like Meta is trying to force me to buy a Quest 2 to get updated. Solution: Allow a backup update process by connecting thru USB to a PC at least. I'm sure there are other OS update methods Meta could provide. Problem #3: YouTube has 180 and 360 videos but they stopped working and only look good on a movie screen type billboard that no longer fills the view Solution: This may be fixed if I can get the glasses to update I'll wait until Apple or anyone else comes out with something because I'm excited by VR but I refuse to buy another Quest. I don't trust Meta to get it even close to right.

cgriswald 5y ago
My experience: I have an older processor that lacks something the Oculus wants. Even though Oculus runs fine on my system I get a nice big floating unremovable notification that Oculus can’t run on my system any time I use the device. The only solution I found online was a registry hack that convinces the Oculus I’m running a different processor.

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sleightofmind 5y ago

There is something quite satisfying about stumbling on a superbly-written, over-the-top rant after a long drought. Rants are just so much fun when they're done by a competent wordsmith with a great sense of sarcasm. It probably helps that I mostly buy into his thesis. And how can you not warm to a guy who describes himself as, "Editor/owner/flannel doofus"? Loved this line: "the haunted space station that generates the profits and luridly deranges America’s aunts..." But truth be told, a couple of my aunts didn't need much help from Facebook. After nearly seventy years, I can assure you that an abundance of folks with gullibility to spare and kooky perceptions of reality has never depended on greedy corporations, if indeed a corporation can be greedy -- I've always thought greed was more a characteristic of people and a few other animals. Still, just a great rant. Many thanks!

scotty79 5y ago

> Everything you have and everyone you care about will be taken from you by forces beyond your control, the ad says. You will be surplus to requirements, first fungible and ridiculous and then literally disposable. You will lose everything. This is literally what aging is. You are gradually worth less and less and number of people to whom you are worth anything shrinks. Because of the changing world and because of what it means to be aging human. Even your own grandkids, if you ever have any, will be barely giving a sh_t about you in a best case scenario. This ad is for aging millenials like Mark himself. It's pure nolstalgia and promise of reliving better times.

vba616 5y ago
It reeks of pity, by younger people who haven't accepted their own mortality and can't empathize or see any value in aging. Millennials probably need at least another decade on average to get it.
- scotty79 5y ago
  Millennials are now old enough that they grew out of fantasy of never getting old but haven't yet grew into the fantasy of believing that aging has some value. That aging it's something worth doing. Something that we wouldn't get rid of in blink of an eye if we could.
  - vba616 5y ago
    >haven't yet grew into the fantasy of believing that aging has some value Believing that aging has no value is all well and good, unless you want to sell things to old people.

nathanaldensr 5y ago

The font that website uses is horrendous. My eyes jittered so much trying to read it I simply gave up.

picsao 5y ago

awisema 5y ago

In 1909 E.M. Forster published “The Machine Stops” a dystopian vision of a world where nobody ever leaves their individual rooms, and instead interacts solely through “the machine.” 1909! Neuromancer, The Matrix, the list goes on… Plenty of prior art, and somebody still thinks this is a good idea!?

rdiddly 5y ago

Great piece that satisfies my Facebook blood-lust. Seeing the ad for the first time is definitely a WTF experience too. A bit too honest in spite of itself. Are they tone-deaf as usual, or actually trying to normalize a world that just sort of routinely and casually screws you over and discards and wastes you? Like hey when the world inevitably fucks you and finally you're nothing but a shadow of your former self, we'll be here to help you relive the old times. (With no genitals of course.) I dunno, it's too weird! Unsettling. Hard to believe someone thought it was a good idea.

vba616 5y ago

I recently saw an ad on Facebook or Twitter for Amazon Alexa that said "what if Alexa could read minds?" and went on to dramatize the hypothetical. I was absolutely gobsmacked as they say, it took me several minutes to come to terms with the idea that this was a genuine ad, not a parody, supposed to promote feelings of goodwill towards an always-listening assistant. Perhaps their next ad will say "what if Alexa was linked directly to counterterrorism authorities" and dramatize something like the end of 1984...and then say "good thing it isn't yet, because the details need a bit of work".

Rebelgecko 5y ago
If you think that's bad, you clearly haven't seen Amazon's ads about using Alexa to perform sexual harassment

imtringued 5y ago

This company bought their way into the VR industry by buying Occulus, why haven't they bought VR chat and second life and merged the two instead of embarassing themselves? Thank god they didn't. Seeing this company fail at least tells us that they could not ruin VR as much as people feared.

t8e56vd4ih 5y ago

being someone who feels like such a puppet at the moment this "ad" strikes me as particularly unpleasant to watch.