Underline This Podcast

“Stuff your eyes with wonder…live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.” -Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

The Metaverse. An artificial reality that’s predicted to be the next step in the evolution of the internet. Mark Zuckerberg describes the Metaverse as a future platform where users could work, play, socialize, and create content in an immersive and interconnected way. The WSJ back in 2022 gave an overview of what’s being developed in anticipation of a successful rollout. These include attending UFC events virtually and being able to watch from all angles and perspectives, including the fighters. Other concepts include optimizing the virtual experience of shopping, collaboration spaces, and attending online lectures. If Zuckerberg and Meta pull this off, it would fulfill their promise that it would:

“Unlock new opportunities for creativity, commerce, and community, revolutionizing how we live and interact online.”

What Zuckerberg is building comes straight from the book Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. If you’re unfamiliar with this story, I’d describe it as a science fiction spin on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but replace Willy Wonka and chocolate with gaming.

The story is about a teenager named Wade Watts who lives in a dystopian world that has centralized its society into a virtual reality universe called the OASIS. Wade is the Charlie Bucket in this Willy Wonka like story. He’s a teenager living in poverty and an expert on James Halliday’s life, the creator of the OASIS. Over the years Wade has studied all of Halliday’s favorite books, comics, films and history which favors him later on. Now, to explain the OASIS. This is where people literally go to live and be human. It’s where they attend school, work, blog, game, and spend their leisure time. For Wade and everyone else the OASIS is an escape from their harsh reality. When Halliday unexpectedly dies, he leaves behind a series of challenges within the OASIS called the “Easter Egg hunt.” These challenges range from playing his favorite 1980s games to acting out the entire film of War Games in exchange for points. After completing a challenge the winner is given a clue to the next puzzle. At the end of the Easter egg hunt, the winner wins Halliday’s entire fortune and control of the OASIS. When Wade succeeds after the first challenge he’s faced against a new corporate adversary and forms new friendships with other players.

I won’t give away the ending, but the message from Ready Player One is more relevant today than when it first came out in 2011. That message is that investing in YOUR real life is more fulfilling and valuable than time spent with artificial experiences. And the timing of the release is noteworthy. When looking at the timeline when the negative fallout from social media began, it all starts in 2010 with the smartphone. As more people became connected online and plugged into their phones, troubling statistics around teen depression and suicide skyrocketed. According to PMC Pub Med Central:

“Rates of adolescent depression increased from 8.1% in 2009 to 15.8% in 2019.”

This was the first sign of a mental health crisis, and that’s just an unfortunate symptom from the introduction of the smartphone. With immersive virtual reality, there’s a lot of potential for good and a lot of risks. Ready Player One offers a sneak peak of that world.

In the introduction Wade opens up about the OASIS and says:

“Being human totally sucks most of the time. Videogames are the only thing that make life bearable.”

This is the first red flag 🚩 that indicates that we’re reading about a dystopian universe. As we learn more about Wade, it’s understandable that he feels this way. He’s an orphan, his aunt who he lives with views him as a burden, and the outside world offers no fulfillment. In juxtaposition with Wade’s reality, there’s the OASIS which is 100% artificial and offers a cheap escape. As you continue to read, the OASIS sounds like an incredible place with opportunities to enhance essential parts of being human, such as learning and work. Teachers give lectures of planets 🪐 and different times in history 🏛️ in their virtual classrooms. In the OASIS people around the world come together to game, create worlds, and express themselves creatively. As the story progresses Wade falls in love with another user named Art3mis, and that’s his first delicious dose of the real world.

I want to emphasize the words artificial and real when discussing the worlds in Ready Player One. When comparing artificial and real, the most common scenario I see these words used is at the grocery store. When you go to the produce section we can see raw, natural, and organic food 🍉🍎🍌. When you venture away you begin to come across snacks and foods that are Frankenstein’s of the food world 🧟‍♂️ . Their ingredients have labels such as “made with 10% real fruit juice” and“artificial flavoring added,” or other ingredients that look like they came from a Dr. Seuss dictionary. Whether you eat organic foods or the Frankenstein food from the snack aisle, both have consequences on your health. Natural organic foods in a diet lead to weight stability, more energy, and less health problems. Gushers, Cheeze Its, and Goldfish Crackers will lead to a lethargic feeling and a bigger gut. This comparison of organic and artificial can be applied to a variety of scenarios, and it applies to the comparison of the online vs real world.

Technology today is increasingly making efforts to push the gas and accelerate us to a world shockingly similar to the one in Ready Player One. I’m an optimist when it comes to tech, and I believe in what Stephen Covey said which is:

“Technology is a great servant, but a terrible master.”

I’m excited to see what opportunities the future brings and I hope Zuckerberg succeeds in building the metaverse, although I’m not sold on its results thus far. Going back to the metaphor above, artificial reality should be a sweetener to our reality. When anything artificial takes priority over what’s real, we decline. For example, investing more time into the number of followers, comments, and likes received on social media has proven to increase isolation and depression. It can’t beat the substance that comes from dinner with friends, a date night with a partner, or a casual hangout. Even artificial experiences from video games can’t beat the joy that comes from real life adventures. The other day I was playing Yakuza 0, and I was shocked by the number of layers within the game. You watch the main character order food from a very detailed menu, go dancing, sing karaoke, go on dates, and teach hostesses at night clubs how to have good conversations. While I was watching this I was impressed by the developers work, but also disheartened that there are probably people out there who would prefer doing these things in a game rather than in real life. At the end of Ready Player One, Wade swallows a bitter pill. He says:

“It suddenly occurred to me just how much time I’d spent creating and perfecting my online persona—Parzival—versus how little time I’d spent investing in my real self…That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real.”

Robert Fritz said it best:

“Reality is an acquired taste.” 🍷

I love being human, and everything that comes with it. The heartaches, the joys, the absurdities, the innovation, the awkwardness, the moments of triumph, the dramas, the humor, its simplicity and its overwhelming complexities.

I highly recommend this book and invite everyone to read between the lines and find the message that applies to us now more than ever.

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