The Metaverse: Virtual identities for the next digital revolution Union Avatars & IED Barcelona
In this post, we are going to try to explain to you what is the metaverse. These past weeks, since Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook will be renamed META we have been hearing a lot about it but, what is truly the metaverse?
Metaverse is a concept coined in 1992 by Neal Stephenson in his book Snow Crash. The term, however, has long evolved ever since. The concept of the metaverse, as we understand it in 2021 refers to a virtual universe and an ensemble of worlds embedded in a three-dimensional digital universe.
Our physical universe is a collection of worlds connected in time and space and so it is the metaverse. The creation of the metaverse means the creation of a new reality, a new universe, as beautiful, rich and full of wonders as the real one. Or even more.
But it is much more than that. It is a community. It is a place where we can project the vision we have of ourselves. In real life, we might not always identify with what we see in the mirror. In the metaverse, however, we can create our avatar and embed it with both the physical appearance we identify with and the values, strengths and weaknesses we have.
Changing the way we communicate with others and the world
The metaverse is changing some of the paradigms regarding people’s interconnection, consumerism and the very core of the capitalistic system. Business models of many companies are adapting to this new world. Apart from the giant Facebook, we may find a lot of companies accommodating to the digital world, such as Balenciaga which collaborated with Fortnite to create a new fashion collection specifically costumed for the multiverse. They have their products inside the metaverse without needing to sell them outside in the physical world.
In the video below, our CEO Cai Felip will also talk about how much of ourselves we have to put into our digital identity to remain ourselves and many other interesting necessary questions for the development of our virtual identities in the metaverse.
