What Y2K Taught Us About the Metaverse
As the Metaverse sets the stage for the next cultural reset, Y2K and the decade that followed gives us glimpses into possibilities opened when tech and culture collide.
With both Nike and adidas making their own plays in the space, I’m taking a deep dive into the Metaverse to see if I can get my bearings. Going in I expected a neat, compact definition of this new frontier in tech. Instead, I found myself down a rabbit hole of science fiction and future thinking.
In Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson penned the original concept of the Metaverse: a virtual reality in which people can work, shop and play. Using Stephenson’s world as a starting point the Metaverse stands to revolutionize the economy and culture by providing digitally interconnected experiences, products and infrastructure.
This feels a lot like the rise of the Internet. In 1999, the world wide web was still in its infancy. Who could have predicted music streaming, GPS, smartphones, social media? Massive cultural impact and technological development. The Metaverse touches back to Y2K, a time of glittering hope and possibility fueled by the inventions of technology. At the start of the new millennium, Y2K was a bug that many feared would throw computing systems into chaos when the clock struck midnight to 2000. In a multi-industry billion-dollar effort, chaos was avoided and then Y2K morphed into an era defined by the arrival of digital technology married to pursuits of music, art, fashion and design. In short, Y2K was the groundwork for a cultural reset. That same potential brews now.
TLC “No Scrubs” music video 1999
We can start to understand exactly how the Metaverse will come to life through a framework of 7 key characteristics from Matthew Ball. These characteristics, along with advancements in technology, will usher the Metaverse into final form:
Persistent in the same way the real-world continues indefinitely
Synchronous as real-living experiences that exist for everyone and in real-time
Without any cap to concurrent users while providing each user their own individual sense of presence.
A fully functioning economy
An experience that spans both digital and physical worlds, private and public networks, open and closed platforms
Unprecedented interoperability so the car you buy from your dealer’s website can also be used by your avatar in a game world
Populated by content and experiences stemming from a large range of contributors
The tech trends we’re seeing now are part and parcel, focused on the building blocks. They can be sorted into three main categories:
Web3: Building the platform to power persistent, synchronous experiences
Cryptocurrency & NFTs: Building the digital economy
Gaming: The development of hardware and software that enables fully immersive experiences
Developments in these three areas are what makes the Metaverse really possible. Then, the right infrastructure makes innovation possible. As the Metaverse sets the stage for the next cultural reset, Y2K and the decade that followed gives us glimpses into the possibilities that open up when tech and culture collide.
Missy Elliott “Supa Dupa Fly” music video 1997 from Billboard
When Tech Marries Culture
Y2K was a time of futuristic optimism. Coming off the heels of a late 90s recession, it was a launch pad into excess and vibrance. There’s something about possibility that sets the stage for hope. The right infrastructure makes innovation possible and that’s how culture shifts. One of the draws of the Internet, both then and now, is that it is a pathway for communication and connectivity. Over the course of the decade there was a rise in instant messaging, social media, blogs and online forums. People had new access to information and connections in a digital world with infinite possibilities.The Metaverse takes that one step further with completely immersive experiences: the ability to fully navigate digital spaces.
From Y2K’s digitization, we can see that the relationship between technology and culture is cyclical; as one evolves then does the other. Technology becomes shaped by the way we use it. Mobile phones existed before Apple in 2007. However, the iPhone was the catalyst for a smartphone revolution. Many of the features of the first iPhone were the first of its kind like the Safari web browser that put the Internet in our pockets and the App Store. Culture is shaped by what we do and how. Instagram birthed an entire industry through influencers and now creators.
The Internet made the creator economy possible because it allowed an easy pathway for people to turn their hobbies into careers. In the Metaverse, the creator economy will continue to grow as the demand for the content to power digital experiences increases. Streaming services are a great example of this cause and effect. As streaming grows in popularity services like Netflix see an increased demand for custom content in order to remain competitive. This creates new pathways for creators like Issa Rae or production companies like Lebron’s Springhill Co. The need for material paves the way for unique deals based on creative influence.
Roblox is a unique example of just how creator-fueled experiences can come to life in the Metaverse. In a lot of ways Roblox already encompasses elements that are integral to the Metaverse framework: economy, identity, variety of content, immersive. More striking is that Roblox isn’t technically a video game; it’s a platform that allows people to create and publish their own video games that are often free to play. Roblox outsources game development to its users and has become its own million-dollar economy where creators monetize through virtual goods and game upgrades. Gaming is at the forefront of this kind of evolution with the Metaverse in mind, allowing for in-game experiences that bring people together.
The Metaverse opens up possibilities for freshness, even as trends from the classic Internet roll over to virtual reality. It’s blank slate season for creators and how we share our work. There goes that futuristic optimism again…
