Recently, The New York Times had a piece about a couple who had gotten married in the, quote, “Metaverse.” The couple, Traci and Dave Gagnon, met “in the cloud,” as the article says, and were married in person back in September while also hosting a virtual ceremony for those who couldn’t be there in person.
Full disclosure: When I hear the word “Metaverse,” I immediately picture a certain ’90s computer-animated series that, at the time, felt extraordinary with its animation and had a much younger me convinced that there was a whole world inside the computer I used in my dad’s basement.
I also think of movies like Hackers, which … yeah, I really did think hacking was that dramatic.
Basically, when I see someone go on about the mysterious world of the “Metaverse” in 2021, I laugh because we currently exist in a time when I can have an entire conversation with someone on the other side of the planet in seconds.
It just sounds so outdated.
every article talking about a groundbreaking metaverse thing is just something that was done a decade ago in WoW or Second Life lmao https://t.co/I3MRoeuWoU
— mothgirl fan account (grimvvice) | NYT owner arc (@GRIMVVICE) December 8, 2021
It also, in the case of this wedding provided by a company called Virbela, looks outdated, too.
How does this look WORSE than Second Life when that came out nearly two decades ago? lol https://t.co/dzqF0XxcMz
— Reed Brice (@thatreedbrice) December 8, 2021
why are we being gaslit into thinking Worse Second Life is an important cultural thing https://t.co/s3nKLPBfJp
— gem! (@GemCityGem) December 8, 2021
According to The New York Times, Virbela is a company that builds virtual environments for events. In a time when COVID has prevented us from having events, it’s no surprise that there are companies offering ways to recreate what can’t currently be done in person. As someone who used to frequent conventions, a lot of them went completely virtual, some using Zoom to host panels and others actually recreating an entire exhibit hall that you could virtually walk through.
That being said, the reason people are dunking on this wedding is not that we have any problem with the event itself, but the way in which the NYT presented it has this “never been done before” and “is this the future we envisioned when watching The Jetsons?” tone about it, which—lol huh?! That’s not the couple’s fault, of course, but this “mystical new virtual space” narrative is hilarious.
Putting aside that this is aesthetically repellant and no one can take it seriously….
…are we really gonna just pretend like Second Life didn’t have this kind of stuff over a decade ago?https://t.co/k5JBvPS2NW https://t.co/3WVU1clCNU
— Chris Franklin (@Campster) December 8, 2021
The article being linked in that tweet is from 2008, but apparently, there’s evidence of virtual weddings from back in 1996.
From Second Life to Final Fantasy Online to Warcraft to WiiSports, people have gotten married in virtual ceremonies. But now that Mark Zuckerberg has renamed his disinformation empire after the metaverse, it’s time to showcase video game weddings as if they’re new pic.twitter.com/0abnGmE2rf
— Heather Anne Campbell (@heathercampbell) December 8, 2021
bitch i remember being in the reception in ragnarok online watching two ppl get married like 15 years ago lmfao pic.twitter.com/l1leKolJkg
— 🪄💫 Lilith Walther🏳️⚧️ (ps1 goth girl) BLM ACAB (@b0tster) December 8, 2021
Yes, there is a mention of Animal Crossing at one point in the New York Times piece, but overall, this is being presented as some sort of newfound technology when gamers have been going to virtual weddings for years, and those weddings can look like this these days:
Man, I went to a wedding in FF14 two weeks ago that looked better than this pic.twitter.com/S3Bf0NPb7C
— Crazyer (@crazyer6) December 8, 2021
The difference is, I suppose, that Virbela can customize the event to look exactly the way you want—at a price, of course.
Patrick Perry, the director of event sales and partnerships for Virbela, said the cost of holding an event in the metaverse “depends on what you want,” adding, “if there’s an engineer building out an MGM ballroom or something of that nature, then the cost goes up,” ranging from a few thousand dollars to well over $10,000.
To be fair (not really), the Gagnons didn’t pay for their virtual wedding; their coworkers chipped in to put it together for them. According to The New York Times, “Ms. Gagnon estimated that it would have cost around $30,000 had they paid for it; representatives for Virbela declined to disclose a price for the event.”
Virbela, my dear friend, if the final product looks like something from the early 2000s when we know it can be done better, then I’m better off using items in Animal Crossing to make my own wedding chapel. If you’re gonna provide a service that already exists in some way, shape, or form, you have to do something that makes it worth using you instead of, well, downloading Final Fantasy XIV—and hey, they’re kind enough to give you an entire MMORPG to go with it!
Also, look at the options you get in Second Life!
Virtual weddings have come a long way over the years. Virbela has a lot of catching up to do.
It is mind blowing – and I mean completely fucking mind blowing – that these freaks are going to reskin Second Life 15 years after it came out and it then value it at hundreds of billions of dollars https://t.co/2XTktEI4Xn
— Evan (@EvanPlatinum) December 8, 2021
I think a part of me is also especially salty because I grew up in a time when doing such a thing was seen as weird and a sign that someone was too obsessed with whatever game they were playing. The thought of having weddings in-game was met with this sort of “seek help, dweeb” mentality.
While I do get that COVID has definitely made everyone reconsider their feelings on what folks can do online, I feel some kind of way when it’s presented as this new, innovative idea instead of acknowledging that it’s been here the whole time.
(Image: Linden Lab/Square Enix/Nintendo)
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