okay but for real: the reason all this 'metaverse' shit bugs me is that it fundamentally represents a -constraint- of the way you present yourself online through obnoxious corporate-branded Ready Player One-style horseshit while MASQUERADING as empowerment of self-identity

there's fundamentally nothing about this that Second Life wasn't doing in a more freewheeling, expressive fashion Literally Decades Ago, and what bothers me is how quick proponents are to paint objections to these corporatized versions as just being sour grapes from 'the haters'

dislike of 'this enormous glut of commercialized properties is swallowing all of popular consciousness' is used to paint people as out of touch or loser olds, not creative people with different priorities

we deserve something BETTER than a security blanket made of nostalgia. the internet I care about and enjoy is one where I am who I say I am, not because I've paid 32 Digi-Spondulicks to the First Meta-National Bank of Zuckerberg for an Optimus Prime sticker, but because a community I have found respects and cherishes me for who I am as an individual

paying for your selfhood on a subscription service plan where the terms of service of who you are PERMITTED to be is dictated to you by a faceless repository of commercially-viable pop culture signifiers isn't my idea of freedom, it's reification of for-profit identitarianism

take heart though, because there will ALWAYS be corners of the web where who you are and who you get to be doesn't come with a price tag. there will always be a free horizon for people looking for it