Is the Metaverse headed for the graveyard? A year and a half after its release, the Metaverse remains vastly unpopular, despite millions of dollars of corporate investments and costly marketing campaigns. The most well-funded Metaverse app only has 38 active daily users, and Microsoft and Disney have laid off their specially designated Metaverse teams.  

In the initial hype, Meta overestimated the desire and demand for virtual reality. Meta could be our generation’s MySpace, soon to be replaced by something superior, or it could be the failure to account for our embodied natures as image bearers.  

Though we’re prone to dissatisfaction with our bodies and our relationships, we still crave “in-person” interaction and experiences, because our bodies are real and so is the physical world. Even the most beautiful picture cannot replace seeing the Grand Canyon up close. 

Digital knockoffs do not change or alter who we really are, body and spirit, a “living soul” made in the image and likeness of God.