I just got back from Target Optical and my vision is worse than it was last year. I don’t know how it happened, but my optometrist said it’s all the screens and memes. Then she charged me $299 after insurance for a new pair of glasses. But soon, the small screen in my pocket, the medium screen in my office, and the giant screen in my living room will converge, and a lifetime of pushing frames up my nose will bear its fruits.
You see, I have been hearing a lot about a shiny new realm that we shall soon inhabit. We shall work, play, and shop just like in the real world, except it will be in 3D. Not the 3D that you and I know, but a better, more pixelated and two-dimensional kind of 3D. I am of course talking about the Metaverse. Critics have dismissed the hype, but I think they are shortsighted. In fact, as someone who has been shortsighted all her life, I am especially excited for the Metaverse.
Finally, it will be super cool and hip to spend all my waking hours in front of my computer. By which I mean my computer will be strapped to my face as VR goggles, entrusting my tender neck with the weight of Meta’s stock performance. But I, for one, am ready to fall into Zuckerberg’s rubbery embrace. I have weathered the achiest vision-induced headaches. I have braved countless owies behind the ears. On his planet of Four Eyes, I will be the most experienced Four Eyes of all.
In the metaverse, everyone will see what I see: featureless blobs in barely-there landscapes, the world a blur and a mystery. We will each get our own blob, or digital avatar, and we will do so many technologically innovative things, like sit around a conference room table or watch unskippable advertisements. Others may hesitate to surrender their identity to a Mii character, but my friends already look like Mii characters from five feet away, so it will be an easy transition for me.
I yearn for this brave new world where everyone will run head-first into their living room wall, and emerge with fresh sympathy for my poor peripheral vision. Where my optometrist will be out of a job and can condescend to me no longer. Where my digital avatar will wear glasses for fashion, not necessity.
Sure, my ocular disability has been totally accommodated by society today, but the metaverse will let others join in the fun of paying a corporation for the privilege to see. So what if the metaverse will not solve a single tangible problem? Who cares about privacy concerns, harassment, and hate speech? The metaverse will bring joy and laughter to all, but mostly to me. And my bad, bad eyes.
—V. Liu
