Zuckerberg and Beckett

Just when I thought I was done thinking about the Metaverse: there’s now a video of Mark Zuckerberg creating a world with his voice. Talk about playing God.

In this new video, Zuckerberg creates a scene at a beach, complete with drinks and “tropical music.” And talk about whiteness: there shall be clouds. As I wrote in my one and only post about the Metaverse, “Poverty of imagination, with everything at its disposal” — including clouds.

[The scene before the creating begins.]

The partial on-screen bodies in this video began to remind me of Winnie and Willie, partly buried in a mound in Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days. I regret that the Zuckerberg video doesn’t depict bodies partly buried in the sand itself. No matter — they’re already trapped.

Alas, I cannot find an appropriate free-to-share photograph of a production of Happy Days. But the link above and an image search should suffice. There’s also this (imaginary) Beckett–Bushmiller collaboration:


[“Oh this is a happy day!”]

I assume that if any Metamates have recognized the Beckettian overtones in the Zuckerbeach scenario, they were smart enough (or dumb enough?) to keep their mouths shut.

Thanks, Ben.