Let's pre-emptively stop pretending the metaverse is impressive

A Meta guy.
(Image credit: Illustrated | iStock)

The company formerly known as Facebook offered a new peek into its metaverse on Friday in a video tweeted by Mike Schroepfer, Meta's chief technology officer. The clip has a lot in common with a previous metaverse video starring an avatar of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. That is: It's bizarre and a bit pathetic, and we should all pre-emptively refuse to act impressed.

Have a look for yourself, and ponder two points as you do: One, why are there no legs? The video is supposed to be a preview of a Meta-made game called Horizon Worlds, which is currently in invite-only beta. The game's Twitter banner depicts characters with legs, but everyone in its tweeted screenshots is cut off at the waist. Why? Are legs too hard for Meta to draw? What is happening here?

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.