The Metaverse’s Hero SyndromeMeta pitches itself as the savior of working class Americans through an animatronic dog in their Super Bowl ad.
By Bradley Devlin
February 15, 2022
Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, put out an ad during the Super Bowl that pitches the metaverse as the solution to the ills of America’s working class.
The ad, titled “Old Friends. New Fun.” starts with a band of animatronic animals playing for a packed arcade and pizza establishment called Questy’s—a clear knock-off of Chuck E. Cheese. Through the first ten seconds of the ad, the lights begin to fade, and the crowd of pizza-eating arcade dwellers thins in a time-lapse until the Questy’s, and its animatronic animal band, lies completely dormant. A team of movers, likely hired by the Private Equity firm that bought the failing Questy’s, comes in and takes the animatronic dog, octopus, and penguins away.
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It infuriated me.
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The primary source of my vexation, however, is Meta shamelessly pitching itself as the solution to the problem it, and tech companies like it, created. Who do you think put Questy’s and its lovable bunch of animal-tronic rock stars out of business in the first place? Make no mistake: the animatronic dog in the trash compactor is every middle and working class American who have seen their jobs shipped overseas and their communities hollowed out by globalization not only enabled but encouraged by our political and economic elite. Now they have the gall to suggest you turn to the metaverse to recapture what you’ve lost. It’s the kind of hero syndrome that would make an arsonist firefighter blush.
Source:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/state-of-the-union/the-metaverses-hero-syndrome/
