The Future is a Dead Mall - Decentraland and the Metaverse

Clickbait Title: I spent three months living in the metaverse and now I'm starving
The metaverse salespeople have a weird fixation with Animal Crossing, in specific. The number of times we saw New Horizons specifically cited as an example of the metaverse was bizarre, like it was their first time experiencing a multiplayer game that wasn't CoD and it melted their brains.
Written by Dan Olson and Nathan Landel
Produced and performed by Dan Olson
Nathan Twitter: / choice_au
Dan Twitter: / foldablehuman
Crowdfunding: / foldablehuman
00:00:00 Chapter 1 - Welcome to Decentraland
00:05:31 Chapter 2 - The Metaverse
00:21:35 Chapter 3 - The Dead Mall of the Future
01:06:27 Chapter 4 - Clap your Hands or Tinkerbell Dies
01:22:02 Chapter 5 - A Child’s Vision of Governance
01:38:05 Chapter 6 - A Magic Circle

[@MochaBloke]

TIMELINE OF CRITICAL CAT EVENTS*: 5:25 Amy watches Dan dance 5:49 Amy licks her tummy 42:35 Amy twitches in her sleep 54:34 Amy gets comfy 1:08:29 Amy stares at Dan 1:11:33 Amy gets a toy 1:19:50 Amy gets skritches Amy stretches at 30:06, 36:46, and 1:21:58 *Edited to add timestamps courtesy of replies below. This is what real internet communities look like.

[@OliveOath]

Essential timestamps

[@GC-ps9mn]

MVP

[@cthulhluftagn3812]

Your doing the lords work

[@cyncynshop]

Super important

[@juliadandy6019]

🙏

[@Shventastic]

Jesus Christ, ChatGPT-generated jokes overlayed on a blank wall in a VR comedy club has to be the layer of hell that Dante forgot to mention.

[@thetheatreorgan168]

i keep on going back here because of this burn

[@thetableoflegend9814]

I find that section so funny cause a friend of mine is in a comedy group and for one of their shows they had ChatGPT write 3 sketches which they preformed and they were awful, but the joke was about how awful the skit was.

[@sealeo5772]

It's proof that comedy is something that will never be taken over by the robot overlords, because there is no way that a chatbot could script the joke that is the comedy club.

[@_bats_]

Not liking this because currently at 666 but I like it in satanic spirit.

[@baronvonbeandip]

​@@_bats_ Ah, to be 12 again...

[@Everdistance]

Think about this: They made a virtual world so boring that you can't even find weird perverts in it.

[@RatchetSly]

If furries refuse to engage with your digital project, that's a sign it's doomed to failure.

[@isomeme]

Rule -34.

[@BT-ex7ko]

@@RatchetSly Its true though! From what I've seen on my forays into VRchat (although I've yet to peek into the other spin offs), the "suspiciously wealthy furry' lives on strong there. They're genuinely the ones who would spend money and time to try a VR product; so if they think its trash-its actually trash.

[@rabidfirefox8914]

If Furries don't accept it, it's not the gonna be okay of the future.

[@abram730]

@@BT-ex7ko It's true, most have $2-3k into VR headsets and tracers, not counting their gaming PC's. PS: Lets not talk about the furry woman, who was active duty military. The one using hypnosis to convince children that they wanted to have sex with animals and send her the kiddy bestiality porn vids of it.

[@ScariestGary]

The year is 2037. You’re on your way to your metajob in the metaverse. Your office is on the 7th floor, but the stairs don’t have collision, and the elevator hasn’t be programmed to actually work. You spend 30 minutes trying to parkour on the handrails, falling off and having to restart the journey over and over again. You get to your office half an hour late, and are promptly fired. This is the 4th job that this has happened in. You are now unable to feed your metaspouse and metachildren.

[@royalhydra9790]

The only unrealistic part of this is that the spouse and kids aren't npcs who don't need food

[@erwynnipegerwynnipeg8455]

Based Insaniquarium Deluxe Starcatcher comment.

[@bigboi1004]

​@@royalhydra9790counteridea: they are npcs but you have to pay a food subscription or watch an AI-generated video of them starving.

[@BimpytheWimpyShrimpy]

... A metaspouse who is currently cheating on you with Yemel (who agrees with Yemel) from the _DAO Oversight-Revocation-Administrative-Oversight-Comittee._ In the neighbouring Mario-Mansion that you'll never afford, because you could also not afford the "consumate marriage"-emote (user created, of course) from the marketplace.

[@momar678]

Also, you can't afford the metacide booth

[@notNajimi]

If there’s anything that’s a testament to the irrelevancy of decentraland, it’s the fact that Nintendo hasn’t taken any issue with the modern Mario houses

[@blakksheep736]

😆

[@dr6559]

Harsh but true.

[@ampix4669]

Another thing: I learnt of decentraland in this video and the devs are from my country. It surprised me to realise that id never heard of them even tho my dad (a tech / crypto enthusiast) constantly talks about startups from Argentina and never talked about them

[@hels_belle8577]

Lmao, this thought came to mind as well. The same entity that would sue a 13 year old KZbin kid with 10 views and 20 subscribers is completely unbothered by digital houses decked out in their IP? Nail in the coffin. Nintendo not caring about IP use is a relevancey measurement tool not unlike Waffle House remaining open during a hurricane.

[@skeetorkiftwon]

​@@ampix4669Given the fact that we're running out of fuel per capita per second due to declining EROEI such that England is closing down its only blast furnace, fertilizer production is being reduced globally, and airlines are struggling to keep planes in the sky...it really amuses me that people imagine they'll be playing videogames and making videos on complex delicate equipment while real men, in the real world, are struggling to keep the lights on and the water pumping.

[@davidv4018]

Everytime a tech Bro pretends to be a forward thinking rebel, they end up making a feudal society.

[@caseygoddard]

That's because they really want to be dictators and autocrats, but try to hide it by pretending to be libertarians.

[@solaribtw]

^

[@trninfan]

Such is the fate of every libertarian idea

[@nigerianprinceajani]

Literally reactionary in the 19th century meaning of reactionary.

[@georgebush3327]

Hit the damn nail on the head

[@enirya]

this video is probably responsible for the largest amount of people who have ever concurrently thought about decentraland

[@AliceintheRabbitHole]

This is truth

[@mikolasstrajt3874]

exactly. I expect this video going to mess with Kevin views stats.

[@m1k3y48]

I don’t think I had even heard of it before, unless it was mentioned in Line Goes Up, so you’re probably right

[@meggylee8078]

Genuinely laughed-out-loud

[@timdunn2344]

I did try D-land once. It was shit.

[@icequeen52]

"The world literally rotates around you!" *rotates the third person camera around the avatar, just like in every third person game ever*

[@Rutgerman95]

Today I learned Super Mario 64 is the metaverse

[@cynthiacrescent]

Geocentrism logic

[@queenbiscuit311]

at 1fps too

[@AmellsGrace]

To be fair, some third person games lock the camera behind you so you can't actually see, say, your face. Not that its any less funny tho

[@mattymerr701]

It's wild people cite Snow Crash and Ready Player One as inspirations when those books are literally dystopian hellhole novels.

[@empanada223]

This is society is in DIRE need of a class on media literacy.

[@Argusthecat]

"We've finally created the Torment Nexus from the popular novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus!"

[@Ziobbe]

@@empanada223 I wonder if all the people whining about English teachers asking "what do the blue drapes mean in this book" understand how much they're telling on themselves for missing the point (which is thinking even slightly past the surface level on the books they read)

[@TheRonnieaj]

@@ZiobbeAs someone who’s published eight novels and had a blue rug because my editor said I needed a color and that was the color of my nails at the time, I understand their frustration. That said, point well taken. MOST of the time my colors do have meaning, and my readers have found way more meaning in some of my books than I did. Or maybe they’re seeing what was unconscious to me when writing.

[@Ziobbe]

​@@TheRonnieajWow, congrats on publishing 8 novels! That's really amazing! I feel that. I like to understand it as having a world in my heart, a second world in the pages, and a third in the reader's hearts. I think that some things I intend to have meaning lose that meaning during the transfer, and some things that I didn't intend to mean anything come to life in the reader's hearts.

[@MtheGate]

The focus on mining in the embedded games really implies that the developers saw Minecraft and instead of realising that kids love creativity, they took away the idea that the children yearn for the mines.

[@DellDuckfan313]

I see it more as a metaphor for cryptomining. Except the developers don't understand metaphors, and their idea of a 'fun activity' consists solely of repeating mindless tasks for minimal profit. They're trying to market a 1910s Ford assembly line as a game. For kids!

[@BDCTheSloth90]

"They took away the idea that children yearn for the mines". Well, yikes. (At tech bros, not at you).

[@Culturewatcher]

Any plan for easy money will eventually exploit children

[@Zenturio331]

I yearn for the mines

[@johnnypopstar]

> the children yearn for the mines 9/10 Mandalorians approve of this message.

[@bighatbondquo863]

The idea of a digital facsimile of a real dog, eternally begging for its physical counterpart to be adopted, long after the real dog has been adopted, lived a full life, and ultimately died, is genuinely horrifying.

[@LimeyLassen]

I have no mouth and I must woof

[@sabretoo]

It's like the Star Trek ep of Black Mirror😱 But sadder bc it's a poor little dog😭

[@Cats_N_Doodles2018]

@@sabretoo What was the Black Mirror episode called?

[@hugmonger]

@@Cats_N_Doodles2018 Its called "USS Callister" and I dont think it really fits as well as like... I cant remember the episode name... It might've been "Black Museum" where a woman's mind is put into a chip and installed in a stuffed monkey and forced to watch her kid live, grow up, and discard her.

[@XanthinZarda]

Yeah, now I'm thinking about the Neopets account I abandoned. And more to the point, the old Petz series. From before Ubisoft sucked all the life from it.

[@b_megamaths]

...I can't believe this only just occurred to me. Decentraland being inspired by The Matrix literally makes it the embodiment of that meme about inventing the Torment Nexus from the famous book "Don't Invent The Torment Nexus"

[@ludo_narr]

They fall into that particular pit all the time. One of them compared the metaverse to Sword Art Online to me. The dude who made SAO in the story was the bad guy. The Cryptoland trailer was evocative of Jurassic Park. The people who made Jurassic Park in the story were the bad guys.

[@troodon1096]

They're the same kind of people that read Frankenstein and somehow their takeaway was that Victor Frankenstein was the hero that should be an inspiration. The Matrix isn't as deep as people think it is, but it's pretty obvious the message was never "the Matrix is a good thing we should totally impose on ourselves."

[@ethanladwig4292]

the message was abt being trans, estrogen came in a red pill in those days. [for the record i am trans and i think that shit owns]

[@XanthinZarda]

I liken it to reinventing a square wheel because they thought the last person who failed didn't put enough pepper in their egg salad; a non-sequitur of a reason for failure, divorced from the reality of the situation. And maybe a bit of a hot take, but like every attempt at VR and mainstream 3D thusfar.

[@GladiusTR]

@@ethanladwig4292 Big brain meme where the biggest brain is "The Matrix is about how Trans People look Hot in Leather"

[@ekki1993]

Techbros, every 3-5 years: Technically, you can make a square wheel work if you reworked all roads to have this particular bumpy shape.

[@AccSwtch50]

Imagine trying to turn in that lol

[@ekki1993]

@@AccSwtch50 Don't worry bro, the tech will only get better and those problems will all be solved. Square wheels are the future! /s

[@rrkaminski9]

I laughed so hard when The Defiant said "the metaverse revolves around you" and then clarified that he meant you can literally move the camera around your character. A+

[@Duiker36]

"I have never played Mario 64 and I'm going to prove it right now."

[@67ghostLOL]

My wife literally groaned like it was a bad dad joke and I had to tell her he was probably serious. She just groaned louder.

[@elfinvale]

i've never heard of anything so out of touch lmao. i actually put my phone down and facepalmed. tell me you've never played a video game without telling me you've played a video game

[@UnreasonableOpinions]

“Yes I have played at least five of Video Games.”

[@jamesrule1338]

A wise man said it best: "Cringe. There's no other word for it. This makes me cringe."

[@theREALmistafu]

"Don't shop less, shop digitally" is the perfect summary of the nightmare fuel the metaverse is

[@albinobluesheep]

When Dan said that I was sure it was a joke he was making, and THEN he zoomed in on the text. Absolutely mad

[@marocat4749]

And that not even new, skins buyable in games, are already a thing. Truely devoid of any oiginal idea.

[@Mene0]

It's such a late capitalism vibe too. Don't you dare shop less, just shop more efficiently

[@oldvlognewtricks]

@@Mene0 For products chosen specifically for their compatibility with the mechanisms of artificial scarcity

[@theREALmistafu]

@@albinobluesheep exactly what i thought, i nearly choked as he zoomed in...

[@LittleJimmy835]

Why order a pizza on the phone like a chump when you can boot up your computer, put on your VR headset, log into decentraland, travel to a pizza kiosk, and talk to a guy who will then order you a pizza on the phone? It’s so much simpler!

[@_loss_]

The idea is that you're already in VR

[@OsirisLord]

The cool thing about Decentraland is that you don't even need to put on your VR headset to order the pizza because they dropped VR functionality from their list of features.

[@thetheatreorgan168]

​​@@OsirisLord and the other cool thing is that, *you don't actually need to even order the pizza* because the guy running it peaced out and deleted the stand!

[@Syco07-pm3iz]

And? You can just type on your phone or just ask Google or Alexa to order a pizza​ @@_loss_

[@JJ-qo7th]

People still ordering pizzas on phones like chumps in 2023/2024. I order mine on a website like a chump instead.

[@crazynaut223]

The one-two punch of "The Decentraland Report is a dystopian concept of news reporting" into "nothing worth reporting happens in Decentraland to let it be dystopian" always gets me

[@JinStreams]

The comedy of techbros fundamentally misunderstanding why people go outside and spend time with friends is uniquely fascinating.

[@Desmaad]

It's like they're completely detached from the rest of humanity.

[@rightrightrightuhhuhuhhuh6516]

Outside = Not Safe Space

[@nickybakes]

Shakespeare level irony.

[@elvingearmasterirma7241]

Im asocial, bordering on antisocial (yea mental health stuff) And even I am confused and weirded out by techbros. I want to drag them outside and chuck them into a pile of grass (I havent been diagnosed yet hence the bordering. My psychiatrist and I are first trying to see if its something else. So Im working on getting diagnosed)

[@kanehodder3459]

Just make games meta..... just. Make. Games. Stop trying to reinvent Facebook it's not going to happen

[@commandrogyne]

Its still so funny that in a digital utopia where you can do anything, be anything, and see anything, where art and creativity are unrestrained by physical limits and anything you can think of is a possibility, these people seem to be unable to dream bigger than walking to mcdonalds and ordering a big mac from another actual person. Its embarassing.

[@jweathers131]

Capitalistic Institutionalization

[@Crypted112]

lol it really is amazing how little creativity any of these cryptobros have, it's nothing but endless and hollow greed

[@scotwithonet989]

i just had to say that this genuinely might be my all time favourite comment ive ever read on youtube, incredible work

[@Lishadra]

Where is their goddamn whimsy!!

[@NothingXemnas]

It is because it already exists in the form of VRChat. They don't want to be VRC, they wanted to be unique and built from the ground up, which means they cannot be the best current implementation of a virtual world, to their detriment!

[@finnruel1813]

"Creating a rayified space so real it could be said to contain divinity" sounds like the motivation for a JRPG final boss

[@blakksheep736]

📝

[@Karamazov9]

Reified

[@calebharris292]

Modern Christians take the "being in the world but not of it" more as a challenge instead of a warning.

[@ihollander6736]

Lol, they cant even create divinity in the real world and they think they can invent it in the metaverse too. Its almost...adorable in its naivete

[@filaristillixusilan6109]

I agree with that, and I'm religious lol.

[@triangleshiny]

god it just hit me that there's no seats in the theater because you can't actually sit in the game by default

[@luobomu9747]

But your avatar isn't going to get tired or uncomfortable standing up, so there's no practical reason for seats. But then again, there's no reason to go to a place with an imaginary screen in order to watch movies as in reality you're already sitting in front of an actual screen (or have one strapped to your face).

[@TheManTheMythD]

Techbros: "You can fully interact with this world and make genuine connections with people." People: "The only thing you can do is buy and sell shit." Techbros: "What else would you want to do?"

[@daughterofyith5393]

It astonishes me how obsessed techbros are with brands and selling.

[@antonioscendrategattico2302]

@@daughterofyith5393 They're immersed 24/7 in a social circle that literally only talks about that and measures human worth with cash, I'm not surprised.

[@onlyeyeno]

@@antonioscendrategattico2302 That's only the ones that still have one foot in reality. From what I've seen they are convinced that "Real Money" is for looser it's all about the crypto, possibly """invested""" in NFTs... The line goes up" ;)

[@nvan7891]

Not even good shit. Worthless shit. Until I can buy virtual drugs that get me actually high I'll pass.

[@FoodFanBoy7845]

@@onlyeyeno I see what you did there.... Seriously though, that video was amazing.

[@icepelt1001]

The Comedy Club typing in 'Tell me a joke' to Chat GPT as an example of entertainment is one of the funniest fucking things I've seen all week.

[@Lucas-rz3vl]

Accidental Comedy

[@Nevernamed]

"In the future, humour will be randomly generated!"

[@firiel2366]

​@@Nevernamed Why did the chicken cross the road?

[@skyisreallyhigh3333]

@@firiel2366 "First and foremost, it is important to acknowledge that chickens are known to be curious creatures who are often drawn to new and exciting stimuli. As such, it is possible that the chicken in question simply wanted to explore the other side of the road out of a sense of curiosity or adventure. Additionally, there may have been a variety of environmental factors that influenced the chicken's decision to cross the road. For example, the chicken may have been seeking food, water, or shelter on the other side of the road, or it may have been trying to escape from predators or other sources of danger. It is also possible that the chicken was simply following the lead of other members of its flock, who may have already crossed the road and encouraged the chicken to join them. Of course, it is also possible that the chicken's decision to cross the road was entirely random and arbitrary, with no discernible motivation or purpose behind it. Ultimately, the question of why the chicken crossed the road may never be fully answered, as it is impossible to know for certain what was going on in the mind of the chicken at the time of its journey. However, by considering a range of possible explanations and taking into account the known behaviors and characteristics of chickens, we can gain a better understanding of this intriguing phenomenon." Chat-GPT

[@hop9193]

@@firiel2366 I don't know. Why did the chicken cross the road?

[@Frenchhornhero]

Watching Gloria Gao finish the fashion week show and yell "what the fuck did I just watch," followed by her hyping up the future potential of Decentraland, was truly some whiplash.

[@JJ-qo7th]

Bills gotta get paid I guess.

[@ultrawhitebread]

I just love the screaming in the background of that clip. Dude is orgasming at whatever is crashing in Decentraland.

[@Magic_beans_]

That’s basically what Dan’s saying at 1:16:20. Lifestyle journalism (fashion, travel, hobbies) is very much “if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all.” And often the journalist has an editor who won’t let them “say nothing”, so all that’s left is to cherrypick the positives.

[@tansywhisker2547]

I love their concept of “have something in the game and have it in real life too!” Like what they’re talking about isn’t just fucking webkinz

[@Cricket-mo4vr]

Omg you're right they made reverse Webkins and decided that was the future of commerce

[@blakksheep736]

Whats Webkinz?

[@channelwhatchamacallit2614]

@@blakksheep736 It was a kids MMO where you buy real life stuffed animals that come with codes, and the codes are then used on your webkinz account so you can play as your new stuffed animal. Sort of like the Sims but to get another Sim in your household you have to buy a stuffed animal. -A former Webkinz Kid

[@kevinstephenson3531]

@@blakksheep736basically you’d buy a stuffed animal and then on its tag was a code that you could enter to make an account for this game called Webkinz. It has a couple of mini games that you can play with npcs or other kids. You can make and design rooms for your pet to live in.

[@evamiller4886]

@@blakksheep736it’s a stuffed animal which came with an online access code. You put your access code in to the website and it made an account with a cartoon avatar version of your animal. You could dress it up, build and decorate a house for them, and play various mini games either on your own or competing against other players. I loved it as a kid. I had a penguin and a koala!

[@ettaz]

How anyone can, with a straight face, claim that its "revolutionary" for me to strap on AR goggles, FIND and then WALK IN a virtual McDonald's, TALK to the poor cashier thats probably sitting in a weird call center, also wearing goggles, pay with weird McCrypto or some shit, when now I do it with a few clicks from my phone is mindbogglingly stupid to me

[@azzy-551]

it is endlessly funny how metaverse/crypto shills will sell the idea of roleplaying real life scenarios as a fantastic, life changing substitution for real life scenarios. They really don't want to go outside huh.

[@doingitwelldotbiz]

Then, presumably, there is a wait above and beyond what is typical in a brick and mortar establishment. So... still a social interaction, still a wait, still get the same food, but there's a barrier of entry that is both technical and financial. Cool cool cool. I'll take twelve.

[@ragalyiakos]

It really is fascinating how obsessed crypto-, NFT- and metaverse-bros are with forcefully reintroducing inconvenience into places where it doesn't need to exist.

[@OsirisLord]

I mean yes Decentraland replicates the functionality of tools that already exist but it's also cumbersome, slow, ugly, and runs at 5 FPS.

[@OsirisLord]

@@ragalyiakos This is why I called NFTs a solution looking for a problem. Take the example of "With NFTs you can take an item from one video game into another." Like first up, no they can't. An NFT is just a receipt on a blockchain certifying a transaction. Even if a game developer wanted said functionality to exist in their projects, they would build their games with that feature in mind and they wouldn't even need NFTs or a blockchain to do so.

[@alicethetransdalek7333]

i'm a hobbyist game developer, i'm a ***really bad*** hobbyist game developer. every single piece of decentraland footage you've showed is something i'd be extremely embarassed to show to my discord friends. the fact that they're actually trying to sell it as "the future of the internet" shows such an absurd disconnect with reality that i don't even have the words to describe it

[@Vesperitis]

I have tried to make games exactly once. I quit after I discovered that the reason why my game kept crashing was because my code said “x” instead of “X” and I knew I didn’t have the patience or aptitude for that kind of nonsense. I swear the Decentraland graphics are not that much better than from the game I tried to make.

[@internetfasting80085]

​@@Vesperitis I think they made it so bad on purpose, like if the potential customer is so dumb (or just not versed in games at all and is purely in it for private profit) & greedy to not realize how shiRt the metaverse is, then theyll be sumb/greedy enough to actually buy into the super obvious scam that it is.

[@Vesperitis]

@@internetfasting80085 I live by the maxim "Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence." Put it simply, I don't think these 'developers' made it bad on purpose, they just really didn't know how bad they were to begin with.

[@catormw]

@@internetfasting80085 Yep. That is pretty much what Dan was saying in the video when he compared all of this metaverse stuff to nigerian prince scams. Edit: forgot to add that Dan mentions that it is borderline a nigerian prince scam, because, at the very least, not everyone working on or involved with the metaverse in some way is doing that type of scam on purpose. Many of them are just actually stupid.

[@Dr.Quarex]

You have to be as dumb and unable to recognize mistakes as Mark Zuckerberg to think something like this is cool, yes.

[@svfrey7]

Lindt deliberately describing their metaverse store as "totally comprehensible," as opposed to, like, almost any other characterization, is just the epitome of how idiotic everything about the metaverse is. The fact that a user **being able to understand where they are and what they can do here** is being highlighted as a core aspect indicates that comprehensibility is the exception, not the norm.

[@FuckYourSelf99]

Yes!!!! I loved that. The most complimentary thing they could find to say about their Metaverse store is "you wont feel like you've had a serious head injury"

[@levibee9451]

Screw that, I want to buy chocolate in a store that is totally incomprehensible. That'd be some real innovation.

[@kodicraft]

​@@levibee9451 Grocery store of leaves?

[@FluoriteRhodochrosite]

The, slightly less funny, alternative is that they intended to call the storefront "totally comprehensive", but the budget on this was so rail-thin they didn't even bother to proof-read their press release.

[@ourgoldenspires]

@@kodicraft oh hell yes

[@TheManWithTheFlan]

Huge missed opportunity that they didn't call the comedy club "ComeDecentral"

[@cdvideodump]

Paramount would sue them into oblivion lmfao

[@wadespencer3623]

That's terrible but significantly funnier than anything they could come up with.

[@n.clampitt]

The people involved with this thing seem to be devoid of any actual humor or cleverness.

[@orlkorrect]

​@@cdvideodump​ Paramount wouldn't even notice.

[@blakksheep736]

​​@@cdvideodump if _Nintendo_ doesn't care, neither will Paramount.

[@phrygianphreak4428]

If a shrine to a passed child being next to a copy-pasted "meta-real-estate" mario house isn't the abyss staring back, i don't know what is

[@nzingahendricks4128]

the reflection, it is terrifying

[@SinHurr]

It's the abyss blowing raspberries.

[@vincentvangoatse2962]

Why do people avoid saying "dead" so much these days?

[@AnkhAnanku]

@@vincentvangoatse2962 maybe it’s behavior that’s grown out of some social media sites having weird censorship algorithms? IIRC, Mia Mulder did a thing on euphemisms a few months back…

[@todd1848]

@@vincentvangoatse2962 yeah, quite a few other Social sites (TikTok being the biggest) will delete and suspend you over certain words. Dead, Kill, Sex, and other words that do not look good near advertisements

[@tavitafish]

I always love the comparison "it's like Ready Player One" because Ready Player One takes place in a dystopian hellscape

[@Josh_Quillan]

Don't forget that it's also apt because Ready Player One is terribly crafted and springs from the work of significantly more talented others that the creator is entirely dependent on for ideas.

[@alwayshere6956]

​@@Josh_Quillan don't forget the slums they have to live in in the real world

[@matthewmuir8884]

And Ready Player One outright points out that one can never truly move into a digital world. "Reality is the only place where you can get a decent meal".

[@battlion507]

And book wise, the main character is a creep, and in the sequel, a complete, total douche canoe who wouldn't care about saving the real world unlike his "friends", pull a Sword Art Online (die in game = die for real) and a SOMA (launch a rocket server in space and load his brain into the OASIS like he was Motoko Kusanagi).

[@alwayshere6956]

@@battlion507 Which is a testament Id say to these chains binding us. Who would save us beyond someone suffering too? Im often discouraged when looking too the future but we draw from ourselves to create history and move forward, not from media but from soul.

[@biscuit715]

Land privatisation went so well in real life we should do it again in a virtual world where land is entirely infinite! This can only go excellently.

[@PodreyJenkin138]

Technically not infinite since there is overhead and hardware requirements to generate the virtual world so if we keep adding houses we would eventually need to add more hardware to host it

[@kingcaique]

@@PodreyJenkin138🤓

[@DavidVT23]

This is Dan's central thesis in "Line Goes Up," that all of this is about cryptobros looking to create an environment that they could buy up early, becoming unfathomably wealthy in the process.

[@thetheatreorgan168]

​​​@@DavidVT23Every cryptocurrency project (outside of crime) is a speculative artificial scarcity scheme regardless of the fictitious goals or stories about things like "mass adoption", "decentralized space technology", and "the metaverse", that they are built around on.

[@flowerheit4512]

the fact that they called it Decentral Comedy instead of ComeDecentral tells you all you need to know about that

[@trouty606]

Damn, that's top tier pun work, which is exactly why these dolts never thought of it.

[@Alicehastur]

i think a fundamental question a lot of metaverse stuff needs to ask itself; "is this just club penguin?" cause most of it seems like it's just club penguin

[@VSPhotfries]

It's more SecondLife circa 2007 or so - which in all fairness, was probably just 3d Club Penguin with more exposed genitals.

[@Lucinoxe_Halliday]

don’t you dare insult club penguin like that

[@goosegas2087]

Or Roblox. That's an apt comparison too.

[@DerplingKing]

Hey, club penguin is at least fairly stable

[@Leafeon56]

decorating their houses with their NFTs like it isnt the only thing you can actually do with your NFT. I was stuffing my igloo with 100 tvs and puffles i know this trick.

[@cogspace]

"A world where you can shop, buy things, invest, purchase goods, and go to stores" What a compelling list of features!

[@thetheatreorgan168]

I love how he says the same thing 4 times in different word-combos

[@fullmetaltheorist]

Sounds like he wants us to buy his stuff.

[@TheWoodenshark]

So a world where you can buy things, buy things, buy things, buy things and go to a place where you can buy things?

[@thetheatreorgan168]

@@TheWoodenshark If you don't like buying things, you can also do these following activities: -shop for goods -purchase goods -buy goods -go to stores -oh wait

[@-S.R.-]

​@@thetheatreorgan168b-but you forgot their biggest addition yet, you can JUMP around the map if you don't want to buy stuff!

[@greenredblue]

It would be funny to join Decentraland, clone the AMC theater they were so proud of, then have it stream this on loop.

[@DaveTheVader]

The only problem would be that you'd have to spend actual money on that, which makes it categorically not worth the effort

[@fntthesmth423]

If some $LAND bagholder from Decentraland somehow manages to get this deep into the comments section... please it would be so funny

[@Gatorade69]

Not just this video but his video on NFTs and maybe Jauwn's videos too. Just anti crypto videos.

[@TwigTheThird]

When they mention ChatGPT supplying the jokes in the comedy club it’s like when Palpatine shows up in the Prequels.

[@mattmcdonough3282]

A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.

[@rizizum]

The thing is that jokes are the worst things ChatGPT can do, it knows the structure of a joke, but they never make sense, not a single one, AND THEY DIDNT EVEN BOTHER TO USE AN API THEY STRAIGHT UP OPEN THE WEBSITE

[@hqueso]

"Wait, that's backwards!" "That's backwards on both sides!" could be the best reaction to every defense of meta/crypto/nft/whatever that I've heard.

[@yourfriendlyinternetmeatshield]

It's like a Simpsons or Futurama gag but irl and unironically occurring. Both hilarious, and terribly sad.

[@UndeadMozelle]

The clip of the guy from the Defiant saying the metaverse "literally rotates around you" while rotating the camera around his avatar at 3 fps is the most tragically funny thing I've ever seen. 😂

[@perryh.-r.4419]

This exactly. As though when you move your head, you don't see the world spin around you! As though this is not basic functionality of any 3D model!

[@misirtere9836]

When I got to that part I heard the setup and thought "no, surely he's not going to, SURELY NOT" and was absolutely *shattered* when he really did just say that like it was groundbreaking

[@AndrewScott1337]

I know hahaha, it was hard to watch honestly.

[@RobinSchmidt-bz3hm]

Yep, it was a shit video and that was an embarassing moment. I will fully own that. You have no context for that moment but it was still garbage and it deserved to be skewered. I was trying to articulate something and it came out really badly.

[@misirtere9836]

@@RobinSchmidt-bz3hm Either you're pretending to be the guy, or you're actually the guy and somehow made video content yet did not have a KZbin account until this February and still do not have any videos uploaded. Either outcome is highly embarassing, but we'll indulge in the second one for the moment. Your suggestion that it *was* poorly articulated, and *came out* badly, both past tense, suggests that you have since found a way to articulate it well. So please, enlighten us. What *were* you trying to say? What *is* the context?

[@RicardoPleasure]

you know a shopping experience is gonna be good when they lead by assuring you that it'll be comprehensible

[@blakksheep736]

"This food is the future of cuisine! Marvel at how edible it is!"

[@gameboygamer6498]

Yes as opposed to my normal incomprehensible shopping I have all the time

[@blakksheep736]

@@gameboygamer6498 whachu buying?

[@Mort-ko7lj]

Incomprehensible shopping is just how it feels to be in the grocery store while autistic.

[@thatoneguy9582]

@@blakksheep736 who fucking knows!

[@Sylveonismyicon]

1:19:40 Metaverse Man: I'm not selling it [metaverse land] until it's worth at least $10 million. Dan: He sold for $980 a year later. Peak dry comedy

[@paulmahoney7619]

Metaverse man, Metaverse man Doing the things a metaverse can What's he like? It's not important Metaverse man

[@KrolKaz]

I'm the one that bought it for $980. I'm not selling until Zucky buys it for 1 billion dollars.

[@iamathousandapples]

​@@paulmahoney7619metaverse man metaverse man Size of the the entire metaverse man Normally poorer than average man Metaverse man

[@nosuchperson5578]

@@paulmahoney7619 folding man, folding man folding man hates metaverse man they have a fight, folding wins folding man

[@jackalobowaitthisnameistaken]

​@@KrolKazHell yeah, diamond hands

[@DrChristopherMooreUOW]

I immediately added this video to my recommended viewing list for an upcoming lecture on cyberspace. It was then pointed out by one of my PhD students that I was cited in it! Sincerely a highlight of my career. Thank you!

[@PogieJoe]

Congrats!

[@nicholaswoollhead6830]

Yooo that's too cool. Good job, prof

[@tennicksalvarez9079]

Noice

[@Dixie_Recht]

You look like his twin brother.

[@Victoria42armstrong]

That’s amazing!

[@empatheticrambo4890]

The "Landlordism" of the virtual worlds is so disturbing...like, you have the opportunity to make the future you claim to be creating be more utopian and you're actually making it more dystopian.

[@skeletonwizard708]

No money in utopia.

[@stormveil]

These are the people that believe the only thing wrong with the world is that they're not nearer the top.

[@yikes6263]

People who work on it grew up in the weird mix of right wing conservatives dressed as libertarianism and for them rent-seeking is utopia.

[@gutsbadguy50]

"we're going to create a new world where people can freely create spaces and experiment with political philosophies. also, this new world will be a capitalist hellhole run by misanthropic tech bros"

[@Ugh-Fudge_Bwana]

Imagine taking something as theoretically limitless as a virtual world and willingly imposing scarcity on it.

[@spencer871]

9:40 "my 14 year old has spent the last year and a half living in *A* metaverse" 9:47 'I will now list a bunch of unrelated apps and services she used'

[@davidshea6272]

some of them I will list twice! some of them are long dead!

[@robertlee2092]

I bet his kid understands those words and ideas better than he does

[@Goodbutevilgenius]

​@@davidshea6272Which of those are dead? Forums?

[@Ziobbe]

The idea that a boomer thinks "iMessage" is somehow a virtual world is so funny to me. Yeah, I'm hanging out in the metaverse with my telegram. I received a message in Morse code, I live in a metaverse! Oooo, spooky!

[@prawnking6061]

The extra horrifying thing is the lack of acknowledgement that being stuck online has made so many kids depressed and isolated. Why use THAT as a good example of the metaverse? Is he stupid?

[@mortimermcmirestinks]

51:50 honestly this whole thing about the $250k for the goddamn fake streaming news network makes my blood boil. 250k is _life-changing money_ and these fuckers use it to prep for nonexistent shitty board-room roleplay

[@sherrynoff]

youre right... its fun to watch crypto products being incompetent but eventually you remember that ludicrous amounts of money are being absolutely wasted on it

[@silentdrew7636]

​@@sherrynoffthe money is all fake anyway.

[@Blueeyesthewarrior]

@@silentdrew7636 But it was bought with real money initially. Only the devs and "early adopters" (read project insiders) get to walk away with actual wealth.

[@Explosives238]

Like, I want to hear the story of the one 3D graphics designer who probably built the whole thing in like two weeks for over a hundred grand. I hope he spent it on something worthwhile and lifechanging instead of... What he probably did and just put it back into crypto.

[@JJ-qo7th]

@@silentdrew7636 The fake money is bought and maintained with real money though.

[@ianm1462]

The Metaverse’s understanding of what made multiplayer games fun is the Steve Buscemi ‘how do you do, fellow kids?’ meme but his outfit cost 10 billion dollars.

[@zleep9182]

The metaverse looks like the videogames you see characters play in movies from the early 2000s

[@ProjectThunderclaw]

And somehow it still looks exactly the same

[@fishbrains1249]

these worlds are an early experiment where players have real digital ownership. the purpose of decentraland is to make businesses understand not players

[@DawnAfternoon]

@@zleep9182 That's an insult to the 2000s game. PS2 games look better than that.

[@zleep9182]

@@DawnAfternoon I’m not talking about actual games, but a lot of movies end up using crappy-looking fake games when they need to show a character playing something cause it saves them needing to license the rights from an actual thing

[@steelplatedheart]

Putting "you can fire reporters with a token you bought" right after "two people are responsible for 7 million votes" really hammers in how systemic inequality is just built in to the crypto mindset. Like yes actually we *did* design a system *on purpose* where you can be fired for being black, because this one rich white supremacist can have more power than *4 million* other people, and that's on purpose.

[@thetheatreorgan168]

also couldn't you just create hundreds of alternate accounts to farm $REPORT tokens?

[@AndaraBledin]

It's basically Libertarianism in a nutshell.

[@hedgehog3180]

The 19th century has returned but this time digitally and not in a fun way like Victoria 3 or Shogun 2 Fall of the Samurai.

[@LeafseasonMagbag]

I could understand the inequality in the abstract but wow That’s just it all in perspective isn’t it? I’ve been way too race-blind with this. Thanks for hitting me with an idea I’d have never probably gotten on my own.

[@Alexander59059]

@@LeafseasonMagbag You’ve been race-blind?

[@ShadowRulah]

I want a dystopian novel about a group of people trying to create a dystopia and discovering much of what they want to do is actually really hard and broadly unnecessary.

[@Werewolf.with.Internet.Access]

And then with horror realize they’ve been in a dystopian state, but they’ve been doing it for so long it’s the new “normal”

[@blakksheep736]

So Bioshock if the villains didn't even have the privilege of being interesting.

[@daelen.cclark]

And in a comedic twist: they accidentally create a utopia for all their bots who now have sentience.

[@FranzFartinand]

The whole "phygital" idea, with an object in the real world and in the metaverse was a whole videogame when I was a kid, Webkinz. You would buy a stuffed animal at a store and input a code on its tag online and you had a pet that you played with and raised and took care of, and they could even die.

[@dali-dog]

correction they couldn't die lol. The closest they got to dying was getting sick where they'd just look a little sad until you gave them medicine, and the same kind of silly creepypasta-esque rumors about spooky stuff happening that you see in the community of every kids game. An NPC killing your pet would not only be way too dark and make kids scared and miserable that they lost a pet they were attached to, but also *extremely* unfair considering the pets costed real money (usually around 15 or 20 dollars initially, but certain rare ones can go for hundreds of dollars online), so it's not remotely believable that Ganz would program a messed up feature like that just for shits and giggles. If it was real, you wouldn't just be hearing it from random posts online clearly made by kids, it'd likely be a huge scandal with a lot of pissed off parents who could prove that they had their money wasted and their kids traumatized, and Ganz would likely have to make a statement about it, remove the feature, and give people their well-earned valuable pets back (or at the very least make it publicly known that any pet could die, so that people wouldn't feel scammed if it happened to them, in a "well, we warned you" sorta way). Webkinz isn't just a game, it's a kid's product made by a toy company who's main goal is to keep making money and have a clean reputation, so obviously they wouldn't think to have a feature like this in the first place. The game has nothing remotely upsetting about it anywhere else, it's less scary than Sesame Street, so it would be extremely out of place to throw in something so randomly heartbreaking. But anyway yes, I agree that Webkinz is better than the metaverse lol

[@FranzFartinand]

@@dali-dog idk, all I know is when I logged in after a long time without playing I simply no longer had a webkinz, happened twice.

[@dali-dog]

@@FranzFartinand oh??? Well that's weird, and definitely not supposed to happen. I know I've also gone years without playing webkinz and even more years just ignoring several of my pets without feeding them, and each of them are still there. Maybe it's a glitch? I kinda assumed you were just talking about the silly rumours about how Dr Quack would kill your pets or whatever lol, oops.

[@None-Trick_Pony]

I played the hell outta Webkinz when I was tiny. Looking back, the mini-games were clearly terrible and unoriginal (I remember mini-golf and Bejeweled but with cows), and existed solely to draw in kids, but it was completely 100% functional. I had a beagle, and I couldn't make it go through a wall in the little house. My point is that a web game from well over a decade ago created by the lowest bidder likely under strict deadlines solely to draw in the pre-schooler market to buy cheap stuffed animals was more functional than Decentraland. P.S. I remember the website clearing all data for your Webkin after a year to force you to buy a new one. I was distraught when my parents explained that to me. That might be what you're remembering.

[@dali-dog]

​ @None-Trick_Pony I still play Webkinz, and yeah there definitely are some unoriginal minigames. One of the most recently added games (probably still a few years old though) is a very obvious ripoff of Cookie Run type games, it's even candy themed. There are some weird minigame choices too, like they have 3 different versions of solitaire... I guess for the one kid ever who's into solitaire enough to want three versions?? Hey, I'm not judging, currently I'm obsessed with the Webkinz version of Minesweeper (Skunksweeper lol) and how many kids out there are into Minesweeper. And the mini-golf game! Man, that's a throwback, they actually got rid of that one a really long time ago. To be fair there are a LOT of different minigames though, I've seen a million way worse minigames for a lot of other kid's websites, and there a bunch of other features that are interesting enough to keep me into it after all these years. So without a doubt Webkinz is more functional than Decentraland lol. And yeah, I think really old accounts get deleted, if it's been several years since somebody logged in. And unfortunately they have this really stupid system where like, they already have "deluxe" members where you have to pay a membership to use certain features, but on top of that you have "full" members, which isn't a typical membership you pay for monthly or yearly, but if you haven't adopted a pet in a while. you lose access to even more features. Obviously in order to encourage people to buy at least one new Webkinz every year or so. I still really doubt they've ever had a system where they purposefully delete specific pets though, just to make you buy a replacement for that specific pet. That seems cruel. I'm assuming that'd be a glitch or something, rather than an intended feature. Not that I hold it above a toy company to be greedy with money of course, cause they definitely are.

[@Arkhavist_S]

Around 2004, age 13-14, I spent most of my afternoons playing heavily modded lobbies in Jedi Academy with a handful of friends I met online. We had a very involved and long-running RP going across dozens of characters, faction conflicts, internal politics, even a romance or two. It was fantastically cringeworthy, but all the more beautiful for it. At first we just used whatever mods, models, maps, etc. we could find and just make-believe them to be whatever we needed, but a couple of us eventually learned to make the mods ourselves and kitted everyone out in their fully-realized, only slightly plagiarized OCs and built two or three feature-complete maps that had everything from study halls and dueling arenas to lounges and secret council rooms. A few times, outside of the RP, we'd gather in a theater map and arrange a movie night. The screen in-game was just black, of course, but we coordinated on picking out movies that we all had on DVD and had someone count us down to hit play. What a cozy little world we had, just a dozen nerds connected over a silly Star Wars game, living our lives together as though we were roommates. What I'm trying to say is, in a time even before KZbin tutorials, there were gaggles of pre-teens crafting a better "metaverse" than this shit for free. At least we could sit in our chairs. (edit to fix 4am typos...)

[@starmaker75]

Your example shows that “metaverse” community kinda happen ether out of nowhere or by people who can nerd out on there favorite fiction or subject. It kinda of poectic that corporations can’t replicate social groups. the best they can do is sell stuff to those social groups and provide the technical stuff.

[@Arkhavist_S]

@@starmaker75 The metaverse isn't a place or product, it's a people.

[@sixstringedthing]

This is why ZuckBot has gone all-in. He's spent over a decade watching metrics that describe just how obsessive and/or tightly-knit people can get over their fandoms and hobbies. He's seen how so many millions of these communities, these "little metaverses" have sprung up organically around whatever subject or common thread. So now he wants One 'Verse to rule them all, One 'Verse to find them, One 'Verse to bring them all, and in their headsets bind them. And all at the behest of the most vapid and predatory industry that exists: advertising and marketing. I'm thrilled that it's all going so poorly!

[@Arkhavist_S]

@@sixstringedthing I snorted my drink reading that. I love it.

[@raspymorten]

Hell. And I cannot emphasise this enough. Yeah. This is the most beautifully dorky fucking thing I've read in a long time, and I love it.

[@globules804]

Decentraland looks like it would be the main set piece for an iCarly subplot

[@ryanm.9363]

Godlike dunk

[@javiers5599]

Spencer would definitely fall for a crypto scam

[@ashikjaman1940]

@@javiers5599 nah Neville would fall for it and somehow it's revealed that Gibby was the one scamming him

[@silversonome5360]

​@@javiers5599 absolute Spencer slander, he may be an idiot, but he's not stupid

[@javiers5599]

The man ordered 200 pillows instead of 2, caused a multi car pileup, and can set things on fire with his very presence

[@atoucangirl]

no no no, this isn't even a child's idea of governance, even children can tell this is a dumb idea and would come up with something better. Edit: that part about virtual food and the metaverse needing to be "real" reminds me of when i was a kid and would play with my brother and cousins that we would each have a "job" and "house" and we would trade things and make our little bills with paper. when some of them got bored with the game and stopped while i was still suspended in disbelief and wanted to keep playing, i came up with the idea of making the game more important and more "real" by setting up food shops and such that would make our little economy have a real payoff beyond access to toys we could share anyways, and instantly realized that the parents control the food and all other necessary goods, thus what we were doing could only ever stay a game for fun. i wanted the game to matter, but it never could beyond the meaning we assigned to it because there's an outside force controlling the important parts of this hypothetical economy. I was 8 when i understood something these crypto-bros still haven't.

[@blakksheep736]

Say what you will about kids, at least they can learn from mistakes.

[@notoriousectotherm]

This is so real. Thanks for this; showing us that decentraland is a giant fishbowl, basically

[@blakksheep736]

@@cookies23z ... 🤔

[@CharlisonX]

The thing is, they understand it too. All of the antics, the make-believes, the efforts and embarassments are to hide the fact that they know that they bought into a ponzi-esque scheme. and are trying to recoup their losses by selling the bag to a bigger fool

[@lonesavior]

Why is it such a constant techbro track from "the institutes that govern our society are corrupt" to "We made a system that gives all power to the wealthy by design"? Like, I get they don't care about problems, just being in charge, but have some goddamn nuance.

[@thirdcoinedge]

Because they want to abandon the hierarchy of the state while also maintaining the hierarchy of capitalism. They see Rapture from BioShock and think, "Yeah, that idea's got some merit to it." Unregulated capitalism at its finest, in all its dystopian nature.

[@AtticusKarpenter]

"Our government institutions are riddled with corruption! So we removed institutions from them and leaved only corruption, hurray!"

[@radiocaster2k]

It's not that they don't like current institutions; they just don't like that they aren't the ones on top.

[@wile123456]

Land being sparse and not unlimited defeats the entire purpose of the digital world lmao

[@McDonaldsCalifornia]

Funny enough if i remember correctly Snowcrash even gave a half plausible explanation for the scarcity in that value of a plot was determined by proximity to the predetermined spawn points. Still posits that people actually want to walk around rather than teleport etc but at least that made some sort of sense

[@nfinn42]

Watching techghouls use the internet to recreate artificial scarcity is like watching someone play golf with a toothbrush.

[@Dramatic_Gaming]

It only defeats the purpose if you're actually trying to deliver on the proposed ideas that decentraland was supposed to introduce instead of trying to be a digital landlord. You could bsically copy-paste the entire closing statement of Line Goes Up hre and it would be just as valid.

[@shiny460]

@Dramatic_Gaming Decentraland STARTED as an auction of digitally scarce land. It was never supposed to introduce anything other than digital landlordism.

[@geneparmesan8748]

I think it was Eddy Burback who said something similar in his Metaverse video. His thesis statement: that 15 years ago when Zuckerberg was young, sites like Facebook actually focused on the shit that would draw in young people: pictures of you and your friends hanging out, finding out who's dating who, planning parties and events, and just sharing your everyday thoughts. He made something people would genuinely like, and the financial opportunities followed. 15 years later, the same guy is now a middle-aged ghoul pitching Meta as a vehicle for artificial scarcity, real estate speculation, virtual offices/employee oversight and investment/FOMO opportunities for major commerce companies. He is doing Facebook in reverse: pitching the profit side first while not realizing that no normal person is going to voluntarily sign on. These guys have lost the plot hard in the last 15 years and if anything like the Metaverse is ever going to happen, it certainly isn't going to be due to a bunch of 30+ year old techbros running cryptocurrency schemes. As a 30+ year old myself, I was there at the beginning of the rise of giants like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, but I'm realistic enough to know that you aren't going to set off the next online revolution by pandering to people like me anymore.

[@Sonjaslostson]

I love how all these metaverse projects pretend like SecondLife just never existed.

[@rowanlavellan9755]

Right. Like...lmao. virtual fashion, physically walking from place to place, IRL businesses having virtual representations...

[@tiamystic]

Or Roblox…cuz shit looks like a Roblox game somebody made in 2012, especially that theatre from the beginning.

[@liamneedsauniquehandle]

@@tiamystic I've seen better looking and working theaters in Roblox.

[@brianmarini4841]

Second Life gave us the legend of Ralph Pootawn. Nothing will ever top that.

[@MissPoplarLeaf]

Or VRchat, or IMVU, or any 3D MMO. Heck, I see tons of people roleplaying running cafes and bars and nightclubs in FFXIV. There are nightclubs that hire Twitch DJs to livestream music and actually do the whole DJ emcee bit, and clubgoers can tune into the stream and pretend they're at a real club. The bartenders will roleplay making a drink for you and then sell it to you for in-game money. There are virtual sex workers (people call them "courts", short for "courtesan") at these clubs too, and they provide erotic roleplay services to people. I've even visited a live theater where people use their characters to act out Shakespeare's plays while the audience sit their characters in chairs to watch, theater aisle style. And we want to get into selling goods and services for real money? *There are portrait artists and photographers who will do live drawings or in-game photography of your character in exchange for real world currency.* And don't even get me started on virtual fashion; a running joke in FFXIV is that fashion is the "real" endgame - not raiding, not making money, but fashion. It all already exists! The Metaverse is nothing new.

[@thebadshave503]

The sentient kitchen sponge dancing at 46:30 named 'Motherscrubber' is the only true hero of Decentraland and I hope they are well.

[@mirrorocean]

1:25:50 "My dudes, the ideology is coming from inside the house." I laugh every time. Perfect response to dorks who claim to be 'apolitical' (as if there is such a thing).

[@placeholderdoe]

There is no such thing as apolitical, politics show how you think the world should be. I think the best way to be "apolitical" is to just act normally, because then you don't need to be walking on eggshells to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

[@puffena9013]

⁠@@placeholderdoe What is acting normally though? Normal how? Status quo normal? Aligned with your beliefs normal?

[@placeholderdoe]

@@puffena9013 normal as in aligned with your beliefs. Not what the greater world sees as normal just how you yourself normally act

[@puffena9013]

@@placeholderdoe I mean that’s usually great advice… unless you’re a piece of shit. Then you know, acting normally is gonna rightly piss people off and cause harm. I’m all for live and let live in principle, but if someone’s normal is being a raging bigot that let live bit is under some serious strain

[@Werewolf.with.Internet.Access]

@@placeholderdoe Right, but what’s normal to you might be deeply abnormal to someone else. I like to run around and eat campers. That’s perfectly normal for me. But y’all get so uppity if ONE family goes missing I swear to god- My point is, society has to work together to work. There’s 7 billion of us on this planet, couple million depending on where you are.

[@josuemoralesdominguez5669]

The guy saying "the metaverse rotates around you" and then spinning the camera around his character is hilarious. Put that guy in the comedy club.

[@ThatSpecificIndividual]

I'm convinced so many of these people never played videogames.

[@faameexplains1192]

I mean he's not wrong, technically. But it's also not special. That's just how 3d video games work lol

[@HakanKoseoglu]

@@ThatSpecificIndividual I'm convinced so many of these people never heard of Second Life.

[@ThatSpecificIndividual]

@HakanKoseoglu Or even VR chat. Seriously, if I had a bajillion dollars and wanted to make the metaverse real I would just buy VR chat and other games to expand into a seamless crypto-free metaverse. But I'm not wealthy nor interested in making the metaverse.

[@stratdax4028]

@@HakanKoseoglu or even Mario 64, apparently.

[@graystedious1147]

Ready Player One: You can climb Mount Everest with Batman! Metaverse: You can go to Walmart. Ish.

[@samb3209]

the Danny Gonzalez-Folding Ideas collab we didn’t know we needed

[@neoqwerty]

Minecraft: Let's build Mt. Everest as the Christian God, Robocop, and Twilight Sparkle

[@swordhunter12]

VRChat: You can hangout with 5 different flavours of Kermit and a bunch of anime characters at a rave party, where there'll be more than 3 people! I swear, what techbros have consistently failed to do on purpose, smaller online games end up achieving, by accident!

[@ragalyiakos]

It just hit me, on my, like 15 rewatch of this video, that Kevin says, OUT LOUD, that giving viewers the ability to fire reporters they dont like would SOMEHOW result in more fact-based reporting and less bias. How in the world it genuinely does not occur to him that his own proposal would give people the direct means to remove reporters who dont conform to or agree with the viewers' bias, and thus create an environment centered around someone's bias, is beyond me.

[@SeanRI]

Because to people like him, everyone who doesn't agree with him (or that he doesn't agree with) is lying.

[@zawrator4457]

Like many crude form populists, he and his pals believe that their opinions present the "silent majority" which is currently being diluted by any number of elites. So tools that in reality enable tyranny of the majority, are to him safeguards against such "manipulation."

[@I.Re-em]

it's like hypercapitalists who blame 2008 on regulations, claiming that a free market would've incentivized people to call foul. they think that if there's no regulation and journalists know they might be fired at any moment they'll make sure to report the truth and avoid misinformation. what they forget is that just like how in 2008 some people made money betting against the system and the crash, here people will fire anyone they don't like and turn reporters into rubber stamps for their own biases

[@jackalobowaitthisnameistaken]

Good argument. Unfortunately I am a registered Decentraland voter on 70 alternative accounts and your comment will now be deleted.

[@farribastarfyre]

This video made me realize why, even though I think it's really cool that you can physically browse the shelves of stores in RDR2, I almost always use the catalogue instead of actually doing that.

[@NathanWubs]

I tottalyy forgot that you could browse the actual shelves until now you mentioned it.

[@inciaradible7144]

‘The metaverse literally revolves around you.’ he said as he showed off the novel technology of *checks notes* a third-person camera.

[@harfharfful]

That was just really weird. It's typically a benchmark of maturity to realize that the world *doesn't* revolve around you. This is the kind of socially mal-adjusted bizarreness that seems to completely permeate the web3/crypto/NFT/metaverse landscape like some kind of nauseous miasma.

[@cheezemonkeyeater]

Well, when he rotated the camera, it did look like the world was revolving around him. Maybe that's what he meant?

[@dcogs8856]

@@harfharfful it’s also reflecting on investment culture. The lambo and 🚀 are not within the scope of responsible investing but instead are indicative of main character syndrome. A need to have power that’s recognized by everyone else.

[@eddieZDI]

So much better than the real world where I often am not the centre of the observable space...

[@marocat4749]

Ok i admit, its very funny, and a sorry excuse, but funny

[@lostozian_turandot]

I'm adding my voice to a 12,000 strong comment section and will likely be seen by no one, but it just struck me how many Decentraland users ask to be contacted on Discord, when the Metaverse is supposed to be a "place for genuine connections"????? Why would there not be native user-to-user chat in your Metaverse!? One of the foundational features that would actually make people stay on the platform in order to interact with each other?!?!? This could be something they add later the same way they added JUMPING multiple years after launch, but like, that just hit me that Decentraland users constantly ask to be contacted on other platforms that MAKE SENSE.

[@vaiyt]

That's bevause Decentraland is a digital scarcity monetization scheme first, a virtual world second, and a platform with features people actually want to use a distant third.

[@TomTriyingtothink]

Good point you have been heard

[@spinecho609]

Yell into the void, and you will be heard (eventually)

[@highjumpstudios2384]

It's like that sometimes

[@orestes0883]

That stuff is there, but since it was made by the same people who made the rest of Decentraland, it sucks and is basically unusable.

[@juliocbp9389]

It’s clear that, for Metaverse advocates, “friends” doesn’t mean people you have a relationship with, but just “people you do activities with”

[@Max_McGamer]

"people you network with"

[@lunaangeleclipse9745]

"people you could successfully drag into a pyramid scheme"

[@Mriya6]

17:48 "Best of all, the immersive store is totally comprehensible." This is the funniest advertising line I've ever seen, hands down. One of their selling points for their website, arguably the main selling point since it's "best of all", is that it's comprehensible. It can be comprehended. It is understandable by human beings. I was under the impression that this wasn't just the default but was mandatory for every website ever made. No business on Earth wants an incomprehensible website. If your website is not comprehensible, no one can read or understand it! That's what that word means!! Amazing stuff. Proof that maybe the Lindt experience was a blatant troll by the company they hired to make it after all!

[@orlkorrect]

I'm guessing they meant "comprehensive" and didn't bother to proofread. The whole thing looks like Lindt did it on the bus before school.

[@blakksheep736]

Reminds me of Jelloapocalypse's "this drink functions" joke.

[@gangstercomputergod9362]

>"Decentralized" libertarian paradise >Makes a bureaucracy that puts the U.N. to shame

[@grzegorzbrzeczyszczykiewic563]

The global bureaucratic system can't be this bad. At least the entirety of all countries in the world have been able to quantifiably make progress towards a slightly less horrible existence in the last 100 years or so.

[@spacewardtossah]

​@@grzegorzbrzeczyszczykiewic563no the opposite

[@lorenzomeulli750]

​@@spacewardtossahHunger, diseases, crime rates and general quality of Life have on the rise since like the start of the second industrial revolution. This brought new problems and challenges, some of which the world absolutely refuses to face, but even think that the average human lived Better in 1923... Well, it's simply stupid to the point of not being worth listening to

[@charlesbechen821]

@@spacewardtossah I mean I'd say no more polio and smallpox and being much less racist than the 1920s are quantifiable improvements to the U.S.

[@spacewardtossah]

@@charlesbechen821 crazy how a non US thing got turned into a US thing, congrats so did a bunch of other countries and the whole "much less racist" isnt fucking relevant or helpful.

[@SS-xr7jf]

The claims about stuff like animal crossing and Minecraft being “meta verses” is especially funny to me because they might as well be gesturing wildly at a pile of Lego blocks and exclaiming “THIS is the meta verse !!!!

[@JewelfoxProductions]

Minecraft always WAS the metaverse. Anyone trying to make a new online game and call it "THE metaverse" needs to first answer why someone would play it instead of Minecraft.

[@IC-PC]

@@JewelfoxProductions so much truth right there.

[@alexgaudette988]

Honestly, Second Life and VRChat are the closest things we have to a metaverse without the explicit super-dystopia in the background but they get passed over probably "because block chain".

[@bobbodaskank]

Animal Crossing might not be the metaverse, but it is significantly more metaverse than just about any project I can think of that unironically invokes the word "metaverse" in its description. It's got it all! Digital property and real estate, user generated experiences, speculative trading, scarcity of goods, personalized avatars, digital music concerts, an inhouse coin-based currency, buying and selling of acquired digital goods! And if you really, really miss crypto, it even makes your investments worth $0 if you hold on to them long enough, usually preceded by a visit from someone wanting to get you to stand on a rug real quick. The metaverse is here!

[@bobbodaskank]

And you can even sit on the furniture.

[@bluecheesemoon2198]

Coming back to this after the gamestop and apes video and watching the opening gag just having my neurons activate hearing them talk about specifically AMC to come be in decentraland. All of these bozos are the same really tiny cross section of people in different forms. How are they still so loud

[@stuflames4769]

Lol yeah that bit hit differently for sure

[@blakksheep736]

And the later mention of the intersection with memestock investors/bag holders makes me think that it's almost deliberate.

[@elijaminwlc6079]

i love how the memestock fanatics get a small cameo here before their video months later the same way decentraland bros cameo'd in line goes up

[@Ouvii]

I recently started teaching music lessons and kinda feel like a talentless hack who is stealing money. Thanks for showing me what talentless hacks stealing money actually looks like. I feel a lot better now.

[@princegobi5992]

If you have enough self awareness to have self doubt, you are certainly more developed than many of these people trying to shape the world in their image.

[@commandermynas]

Teaching music is infinitely more useful than creating something useless like this. It's an admirable effort in my eyes to want to teach it. You're doing good.

[@Colddirector]

If you were a talentless hack, you wouldn’t be thinking that and you wouldn’t care. Sometimes you just gotta tell that asshole who lives in your head to shove it.

[@Kei-ye8if]

Hey, I teach a bit myself, and I'd like to say you're making more of an impact than you think. The people you're teaching are being provided the gateway they might've not have had otherwise because you're willing to be bridge. There're many reasons why teaching is considered a selfless profession, one of which is the fulfillment is very dependent on being aware of the learner's strides, which doesn't always happen. The fact is without teachers, vast knowledge, even fundamental knowledge, for countless disciplines will sit, unmoving, in the heads of people fortunate enough to have it. Being able to pass on knowledge is what keeps us moving forward, and that's not even an exaggeration

[@wryckingbaul8612]

Teaching music is incredibly important. Don't you ever forget that. You matter.

[@Packbat]

27:48 I just realized that not only is the Decentraland office of Eashoo Law unstaffed, it is so thoroughly and guaranteededly unstaffed that you can film a stunt where you pretend to be James Eashoo *in James Eashoo's office* with complete assurance that neither you nor anyone else will experience any consequences for this.

[@DStecks]

This is extremely funny, but let's think about it, what consequences could there even be? If this game actually was a smash hit, and altered society to a degree that it made sense for James Eashoo to actually take clients in his DCL office, the game would still be DCL. Flagrant harassment and griefing would be the rule, not the exception, because that's how it always goes down in online games, ESPECIALLY ones that are trying to take themselves seriously as a participatory experience. And that's not even getting into how the entire enterprise is libertarian as fuck, so implementing even the most basic means of behaviour-control would be a non-starter.

[@teddy3k3]

I legit thought Dan found a clip of Eashoo Law and it was legitimate. Which makes it funnier lol

[@LucyBean42]

Imagine trying to have a talk as a lawyer in an environment where any passing idiot can listen in to sensitive privileged information. Or, say, where you can't prevent people from just walking into your law office.

[@RedwingBB]

I wonder how James Eashoo feels about his whole Decentraland experience now. Does he wish he could sink into the Earth, or was it a mildly amusing diversion or ...? Did actual clients show up? Were they Bored Apes, and if so, how does one engage in a serious legal consultation with a Bored Ape?

[@ToozdaysChild]

@@RedwingBB My guess is someone on his staff was a cryptobro and asked him if he could set up a 'law office' in Decentraland. James, not knowing or caring what a 'Metaverse' is, said yes, thinking it was some new advertising thing. The staffer then went on to create this embarrassing display of incompetence, and James continued practicing law, blissfully unaware of the Metaverse.

[@zifnab]

I can watch this six millions time and Dan getting mad and ranting about Decentraland failing at emulating breakout is never not gonna make me laugh

[@TheBattlesword]

The creators of Decentraland do know that Ready Player 1, one of their main inspirations behind the metaverse, ends with the Oasis being shut down, right?

[@KnakuanaRka]

And that the whole point is that not only is the Oasis dystopian, but it was created because the real world isn’t much better?

[@troodon1096]

They clearly watched the movie, but missed the point. Like people that watched the Matrix, or Jurassic Park, and didn't realize the characters that made the matrix and the park were the villains, not the heroes. Or like people that read Frankenstein and thought Victor Frankenstein was the hero.

[@AtticusKarpenter]

​@@troodon1096Victor at least (probably) not clearly villain, he is just coward and cant really plan things ahead. So this is borders that contain metaverse-bros, something between straight up villains and just awkward cowards

[@anselmenator]

I'm amused that this video has had drastically more people viewing it concurrently than Decentraland itself.

[@Sam-uz4iy]

This video didnt cost billions of dollars and has generated more value to humanity than Declownland ever did. Besides the video is a quality product that hundreds of crypto grifters couldn't generate.

[@FrankMcFuzz1]

@@Sam-uz4iy Decentrabland

[@hawkhero5730]

Heck, it looks like this comment is going to do numbers bigger than Decentraland.

[@adampope5107]

​@@hawkhero5730 hell I think my unlisted, private video has more viewers than decentraland.

[@FFKonoko]

​@@adampope5107 nevermind unlisted videos, somehow raising my sub count with literally no videos at all. 😂

[@monanarchoposad9276]

Decentraland's DAO having votes *disproportionately distributed based on wealth* is just poetic.

[@ethanstyant9704]

Especially since decentralisation's common claim is to circumvent this exact thing

[@gaz-l621]

@@ethanstyant9704 It's exactly what Dan pointed out in Line Goes Up. They're not trying to circumvent inequality, they're trying to be the ones on top.

[@bmv0746]

They somehow managed to recreate real-life politics, but make it even more corrupt than reality.

[@Morboxx]

@@gaz-l621 Slave never dreams to be free. Slave only dreams to be king.

[@DBKarel]

That's how all DAOs work. It's a disgrace.

[@evamiller4886]

I love the idea of self navigating cars driving using the metaverse. It’s brilliant. Imagine being the guy who’s job is to put metaverse gps trackers on every squirrel in the country so people don’t run them all over

[@paulmahoney7619]

I feel like I’d last two weeks before quitting or killing myself.

[@placeholderdoe]

“WHY YOU-“ “COME HERE COME HERE!” “NO NO NO NO NO-“ *gets hit by car*

[@evamiller4886]

@@placeholderdoe so many will be squished :(

[@meredit931]

never mind the squirrels. The racoons are going to be the real problem. Oh, and the skunks. If this becomes a real job, I call desert tortoises.

[@placeholderdoe]

@@meredit931i call all the random pedestrians!

[@SovietReunionYT]

1:15:39 That guy looking at the camera in disbelief is such a perfect moment we so rarely see from the professionally interested news show world.

[@northernstepperz]

I think it's even better when you take a stroll through Al Roker clips, and you see he's kind of a big goober who can say really really really stupid things very easily. Even he knows this is garbage.

[@Fluffkitscripts]

The “no ideology allowed” bit reminded me of a line by Terry Pratchett “For you see, the reason he couldn’t see it was the same reason someone in Times Square wouldn’t be able to point to New York.”

[@Yay295]

Or for a (much) older idiom, they "couldn't see the forest for the trees".

[@Pulsewave0]

This sent me down a bit of a rabbit-hole because I remembered that line as Trafalgar Square and England. But apparently the Times Square/New York line was from the TV adaptation of Good Omens, the book used Trafalgar Square and England. Strange thing to change! It'd generally be hard to know whether a given line in that book was by Pratchett or Neil Gaiman, but the TV adaptation came after Pratchett died, so...

[@sunnydong9069]

@@Pulsewave0 it has been reported that Neil during the adaptation process actively fought to preserve Sir Terry's bits as much as possible, even at the cost of cutting out his own bits, because he saw the show as a dedicated tribute to his friend. Not really arguing whether that specific line is Neil's or Terry's, I just find this fact super heartwarming

[@gemcorker3982]

​@@sunnydong9069 apparently the plan was for Neil and Terry to have cameos in the background during the scene in the sushi bar, because that way they'd get to sit there and eat sushi all day and just catch up like the great friends they were. Sadly, it wasn't possible, but Terry's trademark hat does have a cameo on the hatstand in Azeraphael's shop.

[@Norvolo]

That definitely sounds like a Pratchettism.

[@ogto]

so nice of Dan's cat to let him talk during her chilling video

[@redskin_oi9968]

It looked a little concerned with the crazy dance.

[@adamboyd1132]

Check out 1:11:38 for some AMAZING cat action.

[@khazermashkes2316]

Cute kitty!

[@DuckReconMajor]

wish i could fall asleep as fast as cat does at 1:10:37

[@buckysrevenge]

I'm surprised it took until about 1hr20min until the cat got any pets

[@NemoKeine]

I am here for 1) Failure 2) great writing and analysis 3) kitty

[@crazynaut223]

My biggest takeaway here is that I really want someone to make a 2D Metroidvania set in a hypothetical fourth Punic War, in the visual style of NHL '94

[@Russian_engineer_bmstu]

That would be so nice

[@KingUnKaged]

This is a weirdly large amount of effort for Dan to put into advertising his modern Mario houses

[@JaseekaRawr]

I snorted lmao 😆 pretty sneaky, sis (that's a boomer reference, I'm sorry)

[@misirtere9836]

@@JaseekaRawr >boomer reference >megamind what are you 5

[@JaseekaRawr]

@@misirtere9836 😆 did megamind do it, too? Bc it's originally from a 1980s commercial for the Checkers game lol

[@misirtere9836]

@@JaseekaRawr Huh. Alright, I stand corrected. That said, the reason it's in Megamind is because apparently it gets quoted enough that it's just a phrase people can recognize, so there's still no real reason to call it a "boomer reference". You're not out of touch, the children do be kinda wrong sometimes.

[@PointsofData]

​@misirtere9836 no, if you're specifically referencing something from the 80s you're a boomer. The people who put that reference into Megamind are also boomers.

[@iamalivenow3721]

all of decentraland has some real "hey isn't this just second life but worse" energy

[@michimatsch5862]

Which, not to be rude to Second Life, but it's been some years. You'd think that the graphics would at least be better.

[@VonVikoGoat]

this is literally second life but now you get called slurs faster

[@Saltience]

second life but without mod support for every kink imaginable

[@samt3412]

And, by extension, it also has an extreme "wait this is Great Value VRChat" energy

[@officechairpotato]

"Second life but with delusions of grandeur"

[@RicardoPleasure]

get severe whiplash at 42:06 where Dan is holding a printout of the press release calling the game but "SuperDogerio" but also calling it "MetaDogerio" and then when he gets there it has been renamed to "METAMINE"

[@foxdie8302]

**shows decentraland** Society: I can't use that right now.

[@kelinator2000]

The techbros at the decentraland committee accidentally inventing the voting system of the Roman Republic by making votes contingent on wealth is objectively hilarious.

[@josephmoore4764]

Voting shares for corporations are a thing

[@ebassi]

It's not a bug: it's the system's (only) feature according to the techbros

[@mikewaters2126]

It's a pretty natural thing to do, considering the US is explicitly modeled on the Roman oligarchy. Anyone looking for inspiration for how to define their pseudodemocratic system is just gonna be most familiar with modern day liberal democracies, which effectively function the same way.

[@alexgaudette988]

That's what any DAO is and it's one of the pillars of crypto. And it's hilarious every time someone uses an exploit to gain most of the share of whatever coin it's based on and casts their single massive vote

[@vylbird8014]

@@alexgaudette988 1. Buy 51% stake. 2. Proposal: "Give everything to me!" 3. Proposal passes.

[@charlesdurnell3921]

The metaverse is that one episode of Community where the dean was using a full VR rig to interact with his computer, but all the simple tasks you could do with a normal mouse, like deleting files, involved overly complicated nonsense, like climbing a mountain of file cabinets and drowning the file in a fountain...

[@lilowhitney8614]

At least that actually gamify the tasks since it provides some challenge. Could be a fun way to spend some hours, if not really a good way to clean up your computer 😅

[@gljames24]

I think XR would be great for things like virtually carving a 3d model or other design applications, but yeah, this weird meta-skewmorphism when people are fine with pulling up a window in vr and interacting with traditional interfaces is way more convenient. While it would be fun to see a filing cabinet file explorer, it would be way too impractical.

[@dieuwt2626]

AND JESUS WEPT ...for there were no more worlds to conquer.

[@Posiman]

Or the one Community epidode, where app developers test a new socisl app to remove all inherent inequalities and build new friendships. And end up creating an extremely hierarchical, authoritarian society where friendships are torn apart in an omnipresent quest for meowmeowbeenz. My god, the show was so good...

[@acg1189]

@@dieuwt2626 My favorite part about that bit is its mixing two metaphors that not only are have nothing to do with what the Dean is seeing, mean the exact opposite of each other.

[@darthxader1112]

1:28:50 “their decrees are silent yet drown out all other voices” this is honestly one of the coolest lines I’ve heard and the fact that’s it’s about the decentraland Dao is so funny

[@thetheatreorgan168]

Gotta love "the metaverse's trusty framework" That's like bragging your house is built on the sure foundations of an unstable former landfill

[@ems9616]

The foundation on the stable scree slope....

[@JoshBurcham104]

Did corporate tech bros forget that we are living things? That one guy describing a future new York as "covered in dust cause no one will bother with it anymore" is literally the funniest thing I've ever heard

[@Nazgy]

"Local IT community baffled by people intentionally going outside" summarizes like half of Metaworld projects

[@aureliusmarcusantoninus3441]

@@Nazgy They forgot they were chimpanzees with laptops. It happens to the best of us

[@MariaNicolae]

They probably think whole brain emulation is right around the corner, and no-one will have any anxiety around its ontological implications.

[@edgarallenhoe3518]

​@Nazgy arguable worse than that, he's skimming over the part where those people would need an *inside*. Would the people currently living in NYC move somewhere else? Why? (I know he's mainly talking about office buildings, but if there really was no other use for them, real estate developers and city planners would eventually give in and have them converted into housing.)

[@BigTylt]

"Let's rebuild society in VR so we don't feel as ashamed of spending all of our free time on the Internet rather than with real friends"

[@slykele547]

Imagine living in your modern mario house across the dead child shrine. I can’t wait for decentraland to be real 😍😍

[@lunab541]

This gave me a good laugh, thanks

[@weatheranddarkness]

and then you try and leave your virtual condo and glitch out the floor of the world

[@thesultrystrangerdanger6824]

Just throw fireballs 🔥😱 maybe she was sacrificed to Baal in order to build the sacred Mario house

[@plasticflower]

It's sad enough by itself that a kid died. The existence of this shrine... the idea that someone, probably a parent, expressed their grief through this virtual shrine next to virtual mario house... It breaks my heart and makes me want to cry.

[@Robstafarian]

@@plasticflower Exactly!

[@Max_McGamer]

You gotta be some type of guy to gain the ability to astral project and use it to go to mcdonalds

[@marlow1586]

the ar clothes being projected onto morph suits as the only clothing in the future idea is very very silly because it completely forgets about the tactile dimension of clothing. which most people would quickly consciously realize they prefer over not having it, i expect.

[@XanthinZarda]

Plus it requires someone to wear and interact with a limited range of software that can and probably would quickly become as Cathode Ray Dude states, "A pumpkin" when the servers go offline.

[@davidshea6272]

I'd like to see a simulated set of clothes keep you dry, or keep you visible on a work site, or any of the other reasons we use clothes as tools as well as social signalling.

[@racebase9146]

I know it’s such a small detail but my favorite moment is 56:40 where our host discovers that the stairs have no collision and, as a true gamer would do, begins to tight-rope walk up the hand railing in a desperate effort to restore functionality to the experience

[@GenesisTheKitty]

Real gamers make do

[@Lenariet]

Now I wanna see non-gamers being thrown into that situation. Just wanna carefully watch and examine their behavior. 🧐

[@IDOLA149]

Gamers gonna game

[@jonathanbince6410]

came looking for this lmao

[@chainswordcs]

i didn't notice that, that's incredible

[@disastergirl888]

“Phigital” sounds like either a kind of toenail fungal infection or the topical cream you’d use to get rid of it

[@sixstringedthing]

It's spelled "phygital" as it's a portmanteau of "physical" and "digital", but I only point that out because both spellings instantly mke me think "some sort of fungus found only in the tropics?"

[@disastergirl888]

@@sixstringedthing oh yeah, you’re totally right, in the process of trying to figure out the portmanteau I temporarily forgot how to spell actual words

[@sixstringedthing]

@@disastergirl888 Phygitalis Nonsensica. Calling dibs, there's gotte be an Ig-nobel in that somewhere.

[@disastergirl888]

@@sixstringedthing okay, but we’re accepting the award together

[@nomukun1138]

@@sixstringedthing Phy+gital and ph+igital are equally reasonable portmanteaus!

[@hex.adecimal]

"first virtual real estate" is a real insult to all the gil i’ve dumped into house hunting in FFXIV

[@nemexisto]

I keep being reminded of an mlm sales pitch: they're not trying to sell you the product, but the prospect of becoming rich off of their product... But also they sell you the product and then you're stuck trying to pass it on to other people or else you've wasted your money

[@juniperrodley9843]

Dan's cat setting itself up in the beginning of the video and then just hangin out is a much needed ray of sunshine

[@lesliewelch994]

It going after the WoW plushie was adorable OMG.

[@wisdommanari6701]

Time stamps

[@unseenmolee]

iirc her name is amy :)

[@davidwave4]

She’s not just there, she’s often watching him, listening attentively. Love Amy so much.

[@vizerandevir6422]

Dreaming floof spotted at 42:36

[@rampagingrabbit9042]

It’s so wild that these tech bros are like “we’re making the future like Ready Player One, you know, a dystopia. The book where the biggest theme is that people need to be in the real world and not online all the time”

[@guidovanthaar3761]

Or The Matrix. A simulation so realistic its mundanity is its defining feature.

[@ponivi]

I entirely agree with you but I find it funny that ready player one‘s entire point was to spend time outside and the person who wrote it is clearly a creep who hasn’t touched grass in his entire life

[@hibachimk240]

Yeah, RPO. Where the protagonist live and breathe internet, manage to win because of his knowledge of old geek culture he learned via the internet, have Mary-Sue levels of mastering this online game, and then at the end goes full grandpa imposing days without internet so people goes outside. Not sure it was that strong of a theme to begin with.

[@theotherohlourdespadua1131]

@@hibachimk240 Don't forget that the lesson the OASIS founder and creator impart of the MC (one of the few near coherent themes in the first novel) got thrown out, burned in a blazing fire, and its ashes spat on in thr second novel by making him the actual true antagonist to the MC from the previous book. The IRL version of James Halliday realized too late he was a monster all along and tried to do right by including a killer worm protocol within the OASIS that destroys it which can only be activated by the winner of the Easter Egg Hunt as part of his admin rights; the virtual version of the same founder (named Anorak) threatens to enslave the entirety of the OASIS users if he doesn't get back the admin rights the MC won and be with his beloved Leucosia (Kira Knightly IRL, late wife of Ogden "Og" Morrow, co-creator of the OASIS) whom James Halliday had a crush on since highschool and "cloned" her memories without her consent prior to her death. That franchise character assasinate James Halliday from being this social awkward but brilliant game dev that saw too late that the OASIS is a monster that is destroying humanity to basically being THE Snow Crash virus...

[@hibachimk240]

@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 Thing is, I didn't read the second book. I did read the first one long before the movie, thought it was okay, then reflected back on it and realized it was... not that good, really. OP protagonist, forced references, etc. So I didn't watch the movie and avoided the sequel, which I only heard of in KrimsonRogue's videos about it. So I can only judge the first book by its own, just like when it was released.

[@caitmonroe9349]

I take psychic damage every time I hear THE VITALITY OF THE MALLLL

[@gino14]

The game lives in the mall *THE MALL. NEEDS. THE GAME.*

[@placeholderdoe]

Super dogerio

[@None-Trick_Pony]

​​@@placeholderdoe*MetaDogerio EDIT: *MetaMine