You enter a world where you start over. New person, new choices, new desires, new house, new lifestyle. What’s the most important to you? Making money? Getting educated? Finding love? Buying shelter? Getting married? These desires could soon become a reality — all thanks to the Metaverse.

The Metaverse, a virtual reality world imitating the real world and futurism. It allows for social connections and interaction between avatars that mimic a person, pet, place, and more. Events like marriage, have already occurred in the metaverse, according to CNN. The first marriage occurred between an Indian couple, Abhijeet Goell and Sansrati Jain. 

Their ceremony was held Tat a beachside venue and was themed after Harry Potter since they are both fans of the series. They decided to get married in the metaverse because with COVID, they couldn’t have a huge wedding with a large number of people.  The bride’s father even passed away last year so she created an avatar that resembled her dad so he could “be there.”

Madeline Fernandez (‘23), here at Patriot High has offered her thoughts on the impact of the metaverse.

“This could be concerning because most of these companies don’t care for the welfare of people, they only care about money, and want to follow the trend other companies are doing,” Fernandez said. “Once every one starts everyone will follow, domino effect, and eventually become the new norm.”

Fernandez made a significant point on how companies are in it for the money. So many companies and people have already invested stocks into the metaverse in hopes that in the future the metaverse rises which will result in large amounts of money.

Microsoft is the current owner of the metaverse investing $68.7 billion as of Jan. 18th, 2022. So far companies that have invested in the metaverse include, Roblox, Samsung, Apple, Walmart and more. Companies have invested billions of dollars in the metaverse because of its popularity and likelihood of success in future generations.

These companies are looking forward to the profit they will receive within the next couple years. Fernandez continued to explain how companies are not in touch with the welfare of their people but more of the money. It is important to keep in mind that marketing and ads are designed to provide each company money based on people that decide to download or join this alternate universe.

Not only does the metaverse impact America. The metaverse is a worldwide change. The metaverse impacts different countries in different ways. A major example of this is China. China is known to have a lot of censorship in their country. They have made many changes regarding apps, leadership, government, and the internet. Some examples of this is banning the popular app Tik Tok and you can’t use Google in China.  Will we see some of this censorship in the metaverse and how will it differ from other countries?

China is very particular on what they want to present to the public. According to CNBC states; “We should also expect to see strict censorship, meaning there will most likely be an isolated, Chinese metaverse that is separate from the international,” Liu said.

As shown in this article, it is likely that the Chinese Metaverse will be highly different from other countries. China is trying to care for their citizens and are making sure that the metaverse is appropriate for them.

Diya Patel (‘23), has offered her insight on the metaverse.

“I think the metaverse will probably be targeting younger generations as it is easier to promote something to them unlike the older generations.”

Patel brings up a good point relating to the audience and advertising. She mentions the target audience being younger generations. The metaverse has specific tactics they use to promote themselves. One for example being bright vibrant colors, pets and animals, and when and where they advertise. They used these tactics when they advertised during the Superbowl which was a smart way to promote the metaverse since so many people watch it. 

However, many controversies arose due to the advertisement played on the Super Bowl. The advertisement portrayed a fun world which even included a robotic dog in it. According to The Verge,  this ad was “creepy” “strange mix of nostalgia” and “slight fear.” Advertisements play a huge part in usage. This creepy ad actually was able to make people wonder more about the metaverse and the ad was very concerning and made you wonder about how it must be. 

The metaverse will uniquely transform the world in many different ways according to government, censorship, and countries. Technology is advancing faster than ever and many companies are gaining large profits by investing into the metaverse. It is important to stay updated and realize the gravity of this change and how it impacts not only us but our future generations. This is just the beginning of the metaverse. It will continue to rapidly grow and expand with the creations of new businesses, avatars, jobs, housing and more. As more and more people join the metaverse, we will understand how the metaverse works and what impacts it has on society.