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"Player One" is not "Ready" (Week 5)

 There comes a time when too much negative attention forces a complete image change.

And Facebook rebranding as “Meta” is one the prime example.


I have been using Facebook for the last 11 years, and – to me – the whole rebranding reeks of misdirection. The rebrand has neither done anything regarding how I use the app, nor has it either positively or negatively affected the features of the app. While the public announcement of the rebrand is, to use CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s phrasing, to build more / make better, the actual day-to-day functions of the individual apps like Facebook and Instagram haven’t changed. What’s changed is the company responsible for those features.

Meta is now the company that owns both of these apps, and Zuckerberg’s choice to do this wasn’t born out of a desire to “build more.” Rather, it was created to create distance between the Facebook app and the scandals Facebook – the company – was dealing with due to its lack of crackdown on misinformation during both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections and throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Facebook’s origins as an app are less than pure, having been initially started to rate the girls at Harvard University where Zuckerberg went for a year or so before dropping out, but the cultivation of Facebook as a place to connect with people from various points of your life and all over the world has been an integral part of our culture. The company’s rebrand to Meta hasn’t changed the core of what Facebook and Instagram are, but rather a way to maintain the apps’ integrities and the place they hold in their users’ everyday lives.

I just think it’s weird Meta will focus on augmented reality. According to The Verge, the shift to the metaverse will be akin to the reality of "Ready Player One," which is almost like a dual reality where people go inside this augmented reality space and completely disregard what's going on outside. One of the key things we all began to realize during the COVID-19 pandemic was the importance of in-person interactions with other human beings. I believe that while there are benefits to an augmented reality, there are also major drawbacks in terms of "escapism" – people hiding in a reality of their own making to avoid their own problems which is dangerous, especially these days. And the concept of using NFT's and cryptocurrency is neither widely, nor well known enough for people to use it wisely, or knowledgably.

AT the end of the day, the metaverse – and Meta itself – is just a distraction from Facebook's reality. But maybe that's why it'll be popular when it finally hits – we all need a distraction from our current reality. 

Who knows? Stranger things have happened.


References: Mark Zuckerberg on why Facebook is rebranding to Meta - The Verge

Pictures: 

Metaverse Galaxy Planet - Free image on Pixabay

Meta Facebook Logo - Free vector graphic on Pixabay

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