Weekly Metaverse #120: Cinematic universes extending to the metaverse
And a look at the current reality and future of virtual influencers.
Hey there folks - welcome to the first issue of our newly formatted Weekly Metaverse! We’re keeping the old numbering system, though, because I put in a lot of time on the last 119 of these, and I don’t want to start over from #1.
Anyway, I’ve pulled out a few articles that I think represent some of the bigger trends in the space and have expounded on them, and below those we’ve got the rest of the links. I think it’s a good format! I would love to hear what you think. You can always email me at dailymetaversenewsletter@gmail.com (I know, gotta get a new email) or leave comments.
Entertainment in the Metaverse
The Avengers, in many ways, marked a new era of cinema. For years the film industry had just churned out sequels to their existing IP until they stopped making money, then they moved onto the next thing. It felt like a constant cash grab (though that didn’t stop anyone from seeing the next Fast and the Furious movie).
And while Disney obviously milked a storied franchise for a whole lot of money, when The Avengers came out, it was clear that the films had been made in a much more deliberate, thoughtful way. People didn’t refer to this set of superhero movies as a bunch of sequels - they called it the Marvel Cinematic Universe - because there was deep connection there. It didn’t just stop at movies, either - there were TV shows like Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD plus plenty of videogames to boot.
All of this led the whole thing to feel more expansive and encompassing - the characters and the world they created didn’t just disappear when the credits rolled and reappear when the next film came out. There was a seeming persistence because you could touch the MCU in different ways at different times.
Recently we’ve seen a couple of movies expand their universes into the metaverse. First it was Jordan Peele’s films Nope and Us, and now it’s Netflix’s The Gray Man.
While it’s clear that filmmakers and studios are still figuring out how to best leverage the metaverse for this kind of thing, it’s nonetheless a promising development. This is really what the metaverse should be for: deeper, more immersive experiences that take moving images on a screen for you to watch and turn them into something you can actually participate in.
It’ll be interesting to see how audiences react and how these projects develop. Maybe the expectation for cinema will be that it have these types of experiences, or maybe we’ll end up with two classes of film - those that are the basis of an immersive universe and those that are simply film.
One sign in favor of the metaverse playing an increasingly large role in film is that Joanna Popper has been named Chief Metaverse Officer at CAA. If you’re not familiar, CAA is the industry giant when it comes to talent agencies. The fact that they’re creating a C-level position and bringing in Popper, who previously worked on technology including VR and XR at HP, is a meaningful statement for not only the company, but also the industry as a whole. It’s certainly a space to keep an eye on.
Identity in the Metaverse
Here’s a pretty fascinating story from Rest of World about virtual influencers in China: The overworked humans behind China’s virtual influencers.
It hits on a lot of metaverse-related trends - identity and representation, work in the metaverse and the power dynamics of major corporations controlling large swathes of our digital lives.
These influencers are virtual avatars powered by real people in motion capture suits. They attract enormous followings, just as regular influencers do, and they have huge influence when it comes to selling products and services. They’re also heavily controlled by conglomerates and marketing agencies, who push them to work to the brink of exhaustion.
On the one hand, the whole industry represents an amazing leap forward when it comes to identity in the metaverse. These influencers prove that you can have a full digital identity separate from your own - you can build an audience, make money and develop a reputation despite people having no idea who you are.
On the other hand, it’s tough for me not to leap to what I really feel is the inevitable conclusion here - AI is going to take over for these influences. When you’ve got major corporations creating digital personas, why put some person in the middle? At some point, it’ll be trivial to just take a large enough amount of recorded footage of one of these influencers, give that to an AI, and have that AI seamlessly take over without the influencer’s fans having any idea.
One big question is whether people would develop the same connection to AI influencers as they would to people, and I have to imagine the answer is yes. It’s entirely plausible that some of these influencers are AI and we have no idea, and certainly there’s nothing to stop an AI influencer from claiming that there’s a real person in a motion capture suit behind the scenes.
And of course once AI personas become indistinguishable from humans in the metaverse, you can expect a whole lot more jobs to go their way - from salespeople to customer service agents to tech support, if a job doesn’t require physical interaction, it’ll probably go to an AI. While a customer support call center staffed by AI means you’ll never have to wait on hold, that’s also a whole lot of jobs that will disappear, and I certainly hope we figure out what to do about that before it happens.
Law in the Metaverse
Okay, not so much law in the metaverse as one lawyer in the metaverse in a commercial… but just give it a watch if you have 30 seconds. It’s great, I think?
Education in the Metaverse
Pittsburgh Zoo's new VR experience puts you right in the jungle with gorillas: This is the kind of neato use of VR that everyone can understand and enjoy - I hope we see more of it!
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology to launch metaverse campuses: This one goes a bit deeper than just VR classes - they’re building digital replicas of the campuses and enabling students to handle administrative procedures in the metaverse.
Immersive virtual reality brings first responder training into the future: Whether you’re a QB trying to read the defense or a firefighter rushing into a burning building, VR can give you the chance to practice scenarios that are difficult to simulate in real life.
Work/Manufacturing
Pfizer will use virtual reality to help build its innovative new sterile injectables plant: Digital twins of manufacturing facilities are becoming all the rage.
Keppel O&M Partners M1 to Implement 5G AR/VR Smart Glasses Solution: The shipping yard will use the glasses to instruct inspectors while recording inspections, and they will enable virtual walkthroughs of vessels under construction by experts working remotely.