Issue.9 - Metareality
What is a reality that is meta?
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9. Introduction
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Hello, readers of Agency!
You won’t believe this but this time I’m transmitting this broadcast from another dimension.
Ahoy to all sailors, readers, and human beings made out of cells.
Ahoy to all cells made out of a hundred trillion atoms.
Ahoy to all atoms made out of a hundred quadrillion electrons, protons, and neutrons.
Listen.
If I were to publish another issue with the word “crisis” in the headline you would pretty much think that I’m an old bearded lunatic who sees a crisis in every direction and that keeps yelling nonsense in the city square while holding a sign that reads “Humans never set foot on the Moon”.
Hence, I decided to upload my consciousness to the metaverse/metareality. Because I needed to take a rest.
It is not entirely different though, my boat hit an iceberg and was stranded on a tiny island.
Let me tell you though, things are quite peaceful around here.
I set up my equipment, my books, radio, typewriter, a beach chair, and finally, a firepit in order to cook some marshmallows.
The colors are more vibrant, the visuals look like a Pixar movie and I can do and create whatever I want.
If I go for a swim and get eaten by a shark, I pop up again on my lonely island and can go after that ludicrous shark to reason him into giving me my helmet back.
This is the metareality, it is limitless and riskless, Like dreams.
It is where you are right now, but maybe you never realized that.
9.1 Metaverse or Metareality?
What this new dimension really is.
We need to make one thing clear.
Mark Zuckerberg was faster than all of us, he copyrighted the name “Meta” and branded it as a technology and universe. Hence, metaverse.
Just like Marvel did with “Multiverse”.
The word "meta" comes from the Greek language, where it originally meant "beyond", "transcending" or "after."
That which is beyond. Better.
So let’s retire the word “Metaverse” for a second.
Because absolutely none of this is related to a virtual reality headset.
Henceforth the metaverse/metareality is a brand new and much more general concept for a dimension that doesn’t cost $499 on Amazon.
The metareality is everything that is digital.
You browse the metareality through screens.
Social media is metareality.
Emails are metareality.
Because the metareality is binary, an infinite engineering combination of zeros and ones. the words you are reading in this newsletter follow this process and structure, all of this happens in a split second:
Your device (either a computer or a phone) downloads the email (data) which is made of two programming languages (composed of zeros and ones).
The HTML and CSS code is received as data by the CPU (Central processing unit)
The CU (Control Unit) stores the data in a RAM (Random Access Memory)
When you open your email app (you give a command to the machine), the processing of the data starts.
The data is transferred to the ALU (Arithmetic and logical unit) where the math is done, the code is parsed and turned into graphics: words and images. Readable by humans.
Then the CU (Control Unit) gets the processed data (the result) and stores it again in the RAM (Random Access Memory).
Then finally, when you click to open the email (you provide an instruction), the memory directs to the results to the output device.
You read the email!
Yes, it is quite confusing if you are not an engineer.
I’m a creative and logic is not my comfort zone, but I recognized it was important to study this because everything we do in our daily routines, encompasses this process described above.
If you are able to understand this, you are able to differentiate what is artificial and synthetic from what is organic and real.
If you are not able to do that, you might become a machine, and think like a robot.
You won’t ever realize that when you scroll a feed on Instagram, LinkedIn, or TikTok you are not living reality. You are browsing a construct.
That when you exchange messages with friends and colleagues, you are not having a real conversation. You are having a meta-conversation, an artificial talk that has all the words but lacks the facial expressions, the voice tone, and the spontaneity.
If you are not able to differentiate reality from the metareality you will be fragmented and become sick because as a breathing human you need real experiences not a simulation of an experience.
As the digital world further entangles itself with our reality, all of this will become quite common but we are right in the middle of that transition and this symbiosis does not feel healthy right now. It feels confusing and it is bugging society.
Real life is full of challenges and ups and downs, whereas the metareality is engineered to perfection, designed for beauty. Why would anyone post something negative about their life on social media if they can filter out only what is ideal to show?
Where do you want to live?
Where are people living?
Detach yourself from your human essence and the following will happen:
You will forget your origin, nature will feel boring even though it is the source of all life.
Socialization will feel profoundly weird because people don’t know who they are or what they want anymore.
You will lack the opportunity of exploring your pineal gland which is the organ responsible for the control of the circadian cycle of sleep and wakefulness by secreting melatonin. You won’t be able to explore the capacity your mind has to dream either awaken or asleep.
If you lack the capacity to connect with yourself, you are disconnected from true reality and deeply lost in data and numbers inside the metareality.
Machines will soon be able to do most of the things we can, much better, and much faster.
Even though they will replicate our techniques and become an extension of our biological capacity, there is one thing they won’t be able to replicate anytime soon.
Empathy.
Because they lack a soul.
Below is something I wrote back in 2021 when I was trying to understand all of this and had an epiphany.
Metareality
This story begins in times gone by, times when the hammer was a tool, horses were transportation, swords were weapons, and wine was nectar.
An era where heroes were gods, they lived in the collective imagination and shaped the world with their stories of bravery, virtue, and wisdom. They inspired cultures around the world, were feared by the unjust, admired by the honest, and honored by the artists.
The story moves towards the present, a world of infinite possibilities where the only limitation is the mind. The same mind that was once capable of creating science and that could never stop its progress. The same mind that dreams of the intangible and creates the impossible.
The story reaches the future, a new reality of infinite dimensions, a place where everyone meets, whether it's your favorite hero or your most hated villain, whether it's on a screen or in a book, the story will find you, and the story will inspire you.
The story, in the end, was already told back at the beginning, when Epimetheus went hunting and Pandora opened her box, letting all the stories out but not letting one single thing escape... the story of tomorrow, the hope of today.
9.2 Your MetaVersion
Shall be met by MetaThi
If you are wondering where all this crazy talk comes from, I feel obliged to tell you.
Because although I was born on planet earth, I spent my juvenile years deeply immersed in the metareality much before it was mainstream, playing games without any limitation whatsoever. (as long as I progressed through my academic life.)
Real life wasn’t very gentle with me, hence, I found heaven in everything but in the real world. Artistic expressions reached out to me. I became a cinema, geek culture, and video game industry enthusiast, I lived a thousand lives in a thousand different worlds, in the skin of at least a thousand heroic characters.
And I wish I was kidding with you.
Can you imagine what this type of dynamic does to a reward system of a brain?
For god’s sake, I slayed giants and met gods in ancient Greece through the skin of Kratos, I survived a nuclear apocalypse by fighting mutants and purchasing food with coke bottle caps in Fallout. I slayed all types of monsters from European folklore with my silver sword as Geralt. I fought countless wars against threats in Call of duty. I made friends and had a lifetime of fun. I had to learn a thousand different systems and mechanisms in order to get a thousand different achievements.
How could real life even compare to that?
"Definitely sounds like someone escaping from reality”
Well, I’d say that if you are using a screen, you are also scaping reality, but in a different way.
We all have to grow up at a given moment but that should never mean letting the inner child or our naivety go away.
Otherwise, you will lose your capacity to be open-minded, imaginative, and more important than anything, curious.
Reconnecting with real life was a tough process but fortunately, I found another passion: design and communication.
So as a conclusion to this chapter, if you think your friend, son, or daughter is wasting their life away in games just because they find entertainment or joy in it, then this is a misconception and prejudice. They are learning new things and training to be heroes in real life.
If you want to be prepared for the future, I promise you that the true answer isn’t in the next market trend or the next technology that arises.
Because the next solution is in your mind and it should be nurtured with futuristic stories for you to understand what is about to unfold. The Sci-fi genre has always been known for exercising the “what if” question and trying to understand in what directions technology can evolve and change society. Precisely because of this, sci-fi stories can equip your creativity with ideas for the future.
You may find some valuable suggestions below!
9.3 The Videogame Industry
The new safe haven of young and old generations.
The heavier real life feels, the more we need an escape, right? Everyone has their own exhaust valve, mine is currently writing.
As the videogame technology keeps evolving, we will be seeing an ever-improving media that will not replicate reality but actually be much better than it.
Even sports are being digitalized and gamified.
Taking this into consideration is profoundly important for businesses and brands because it is in that media that you will be able to find your consumers.
Below are some fresh data from Valhalla Ventures.
Games have displaced TV shows and movies as the de facto entertainment option for Gen Z.
The average gamer spends 14.7% of their waking hours playing video games.
There are 2.96 billion gamers globally.
You can download the full report below.
9.3 Pandora’s Box
A Fresh Digest on my latest discoveries and some other things.
9.3.1 In the Lenses of Thi
9.3.2 Chords 🎶
9.3.3 Literature📖
Neuromancer is the first book of the Sprawl trilogy. It was written by William Gibson and sets the foundation for the Cyberpunk genre in literature, cinema, and TV. This was one of the books that inspired the Wachowski Sisters to make the Matrix movies.
It is about a future where people connect their consciousness to a digital dimension called Matrix. (Sounds familiar?), well, the problem is that this new dimension is so realistic and simulates feelings so precisely, that people stop caring for their human bodies in real life.
9.3.4 Cinema 🎥
Regardless of your age, I am almost absolutely sure that you know Harrison Ford. It is time for you to meet one of his characters, the detective and android hunter Rick Deckard. Blade Runner is a movie from 1982 that represents the true cornerstone of a sci-fi dystopia in cinema. The original story was written by Philip K. Dick in the book “Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?”
9.3.5 TV 📺
Arcane is the TV series adaptation distributed by Netflix of one of the most played games in the world. League of Legends. If you want to see what the future of animation looks like, you should check this out.
It is important to note that characters that the younger generation played through thousands of hours are now having their stories told in a TV series and probably soon, in the cinema. This is the true definition of metaverse/metareality because it truly represents the concept of transmedia storytelling, a term first coined by Henry Jenkins.
About the Author
MetaThi
Cosmonaut of the metareality. Born in 2155, in the Andromeda Galaxy, planet PA-99-N2. Sent back in time on a mission to connect planet earth with the metareality while cooking marshmallows and talking about boats and marketing.
Zuckerberg still hasn't provided anything Meta. William Gibson imagined the future, using a typewriter, genius. Beyond that, there is no evidence that sci-fi has always been known for making precise (or even slightly wonky) predictions about technology.