Over the course of nearly two decades, Facebook has mostly flushed our society down a toilet full of shit. As such, it stands to reason that the platform's upcoming "Metaverse" Second-Life-knock-off AR system will also be full of shit. Which is why writer Hunter Walk took to Medium to contemplate what, exactly, the AR/VR toilets might look like in the Metaverse:
Second Life was one of the most notable early entrants in this category, with ambitions and innovations which transcended its perpetually plateaued consumer adoption. Minecraft and Roblox are infinitely more successful versions of Second Life with the 'realism' attribute dialed down.
All of this is to say, you can imagine that as our industry "pivots to metaverse" has led different people to ask me, what did you learn from Second Life? I'll tell you what I learned. There are going to be toilets there.
The question about whether your virtual world should have toilets is fiercely debated. Ok, maybe not. But I'll tell you, watching our users build bathrooms and toilets in a world where avatars don't need to pee or poop (let alone have genitalia. Yes, it's true that Second Life avatars had attach points on/near the waist where maybe it was possible users designed performative or ceremonial genitalia but the natural form did not), was surprising. But it goes towards an understanding of what artifacts we carry forward from our banal humanity into these virtual spaces and which do we seek to shed. It's why metaverse platform builders need anthropologists not just engineers.
Avatars Don't Poop But You Can Be Sure The Metaverse Will Have Toilets [Hunter Walk / Medium]
Image: Public Domain via Pixabay
