The Groove Issue 57 - Three Things You Should Know About The Metaverse
THREE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE METAVERSE
The future comes into being through human creativity. From Leonardo Da Vinci to Steve Jobs, a common denominator among disruptors and creative people is their willingness to use uncertainty, changes and the unforeseen as an opportunity to invent something new.
Alvin Toffler, the writer, futurist, and businessman who wrote the phenomenal book Future Shock in 1970, often said that: “to survive and avert a future that comes too fast, the individual must become infinitely more adaptable and capable than ever before.”
The advent of the metaverse is giving you that opportunity right now. This is brand new territory to explore and create.
What Is The Metaverse?
A rendition of what the metaverse could look like when the AR glasses become available to everyone.
The term metaverse was first coined in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 sci-fi novel Snow Crash, and it was used to denote a world that integrates digital and physical existence.
How interesting it is that a creative writer with an incredible imagination came up with this concept! Now, almost 30 years later, we get to see that definition taking shape in front of us.
The metaverse is a combination of virtual reality and augmented reality technologies that give people an extra sensorial experience. It’s a virtual reality superimposed onto our real lives.
The mainstream arrival of the metaverse, or better said, the more widespread dissemination of the concept, was accelerated by the pandemic.
Creators, tech people and venture capitalists confirmed what they have had their eyes set on for so long: “digital everything” is the future. Apple, Facebook, Snapchat, Google and TikTok have thousands of employees working on AR projects and have poured billions of dollars into them.
Smartphones, which have the technology to do so many things, will only facilitate the transition into the metaverse. And soon there will be glasses that will make this integration even smoother and perhaps phones won’t be needed anymore.
Imagine social media, the internet and gaming platforms as well as social and cultural destinations, explored in an amplified, almost boosted-by-steroids way.
Although it sounds so dystopian for some, for others it is not. For them, it’s a chance to have a parallel reality and to mix that with real life.
Where Can You Experience the Metaverse?
A bedroom in a house designed by digital artist Krista Kim. The property only exists in the metaverse, and the buyer paid the artist 288 Ether (a cryptocurrency that is equivalent to $514,557.79)
Although the metaverse isn’t fully developed yet, think about video games that use their interconnected platforms as popular concert venues: Travis Scott gave Fortnite users an exclusive concert inside the game in April 2020 that was watched live by 12.3 million viewers live the day of the event and by another 27.7 million unique viewers in the days following the concert. No other concert, except the halftime of the Super Bowl, commands such numbers.
For those who buy and collect NFT art, they will have the walls of houses that only exist in the metaverse to hang them. This will prompt digital assets to gain more and more popularity and their acquisition will have a purpose greater than just pure speculation.
People will craft different identities in their own avatars: they will use a different body, hairstyle, clothes, and integrate themselves in a completely different world. I know. It’s so very strange. But this is the new frontier of human creativity.
Say you are a fashion designer, and just like Balenciaga launched “skins” for Fortnite, you can also create digital clothes for people’s avatars who will have parties in dream-like places and want to test the boundaries of what they would wear in their normal lives.
The metaverse will revolutionize cultural experiences beyond music concerts as well.
Imagine being able to visit the Louvre Museum without the crowds or watch The Nutcracker ballet first row at the Metropolitan Opera through augmented reality devices - all from the comfort of your home.
While I still prefer the trip to Paris and to Lincoln Center, I know this isn’t possible for everyone. Maybe even for those who can do it in person, they may just not want to.
Where Are the Opportunities in The Metaverse?
Even Sotheby’s created a metaverse platform.
While the technology isn’t 100% there yet and it’s being rolled out in bits and pieces, nobody is going to come one day and say: here is the metaverse, come on in.
Do you remember the enormous audiences those bloggers who were early adopters of Instagram got when they decided to take their content-creation to the app as soon as it launched in 2012?
Do you also remember how many years it took for important brands, companies and even museums and galleries to join IG because they didn’t see the value? Do you know how much money was left on the table because of that?
If you approach the metaverse with fresh eyes as an early adopter to what already exists, you will be more prepared to adapt and capitalize from it.
Start by being curious about your kids’ gaming experiences to understand why they are so enthralled by the whole thing, buying augmented reality glasses and/or downloading an app like the BBC Civilizations AR which allows you to bring objects ranging from a 1547 Tintoretto painting to a 1936 Henry Moore sculpture to any place indoors or outdoors, rotate it, watch it up close from any angle, enlarge it, you name it.
If you are an artist, marketer, content creator or you own a business, it’s worth thinking about the integration of a blended experience.
For example, the app Acute Art has partnered with artists like Olafur Eliasson and Nina Chanel Abney to project artworks onto thousands of different places around the world by users who desire to do so.
The artworks are an illusion built inside the app; they don’t exist in the tangible world. But the people who took pictures next to them are very real and they proudly display the photos on social media to prove it.
Although this example hits culture, marketing and entertainment, your imagination can go as far as you want it to go because the technology will be ready, and the younger generations are already living there.
Even Sotheby’s announced their new metaverse platform last week.
Just like social media revolutionized fashion, music, art, travel, and influenced our choices in restaurants, shopping, sightseeing, hospitality, and everything in between - so too will the metaverse.
This new era will ignite creativity in ways we probably haven’t seen before and open up new horizons for artists, businesses, entrepreneurs and anyone else willing to play along.
You create the future with what you have available in the present. You always have a choice to respond creatively to the avalanches of changes in the world or you can decide to stay where you are. What’s undeniable is that the metaverse has arrived and it’s here to show us what living on a different dimension is. Now the question is, how are you getting ready?
I tremendously enjoyed being a guest of Margo Tantau’s Windowsill Chats podcast. Among other things we covered how our distractions nullify our creativity, the advantages of being an outsider to an industry or field you want to be in and how creativity is closely related to abundance and success. You can listen here.
I was surprised and extremely grateful when I saw that the super sharp Josh Spector (a man who lives and breathes newsletters) named The Groove as one of the most helpful newsletters for creators. Check all his recommendations here.
Thank you for reading this far. Looking forward to hearing from you anytime.
There are no affiliate links in this email. Everything that I recommend is done freely.
THE CURATED GROOVE
A selection of interesting articles in business, art and creativity along with some other things worth mentioning:
One of the most notorious art forgers in the world is releasing an NFT art collection.
The best art show I saw in NYC last week.
We live in such a polarized world that when researchers analyzed 86.6 million comments from more than 6.5 million users on 200,000 YouTube videos, they found that people on opposing sides of the political divide often use different words to express similar ideas.
There are so many golden nuggets about creativity in this conversation with British portrait and documentary photographer Platón, including this one: “Staying focused on what you truly want requires immense self-discipline. If something inspired you creatively: look at it, learn from it, take from it what you need to take, absorb from it what you need to absorb, twist it, bash it about, make it yours. Do something extraordinary with it.”
The pandemic was bad for criticism with its universal dogma of ‘kindness’. Restaurant, theatre, film and book critics felt compelled to be kind, as if criticism itself was coughing at a death bed. Who benefits from an absence of criticism? Not the consumer. You cannot love if you cannot hate and a world without criticism is just advertising.
Weird Dreams Train Our Brains to Be Better Learners.
The Fuzzy Line Between Inspiration and Appropriation.