In 1837, Hans Christian Andersen published The Emperor’s New Clothes-a tale about two travellers who trick a sovereign into believing they have woven garments that are invisible to those that are too incompetent to see them. Proud and vain, the emperor and his court willingly buy into the deception, pretending to be able to see and admire the ‘invisible’ clothing. The entire village grudgingly joins in the self-deception, when the emperor parades the ‘clothing’ through the town. This self-deception lasts until a child points out that the king is naked.
While it might have been mortifying for the sovereign but fast-forward to now. Today, influencers in skintight bodysuits or barely-there underwear snap photos of themselves to be dressed in digital versions of clothing that exist only as a virtual layer; paraded on social media for likes and clicks, and one gets the sense that the fashion-obsessed emperor would feel right at home in the metaverse.
But what of the child who points out the king’s nakedness?
Before we get to that, for the benefit of newcomers, let’s start with the basics: what is the metaverse?
By Wikipedia’s definition, the metaverse “is a hypothesised iteration of the Internet, supporting persistent online 3-D virtual environments through conventional personal computing, as well as virtual and augmented reality headsets”. In
