From Cyberpunk to Matrix: Tracing the Origins of the Metaverse

Christian Caliandro traces the literary and cinematic origins of the metaverse concept, from Philip K. Dick's 1960s stories to the cyberpunk movement of the 1980s. Key milestones include Vernor Vinge's 1981 novella "True Names," the 1982 Disney film "Tron," and William Gibson's 1984 novel "Neuromancer," which introduced the term "cyberspace." Neal Stephenson coined the term "metaverse" in his 1992 novel "Snow Crash." The 1992 film "The Lawnmower Man" brought virtual reality to mass audiences. The 1999 film "The Matrix" by the Wachowskis fully realized the concept's spiritual, social, and political implications. Caliandro notes that Mark Zuckerberg's 2021 rebranding of Facebook to Meta reignited public discussion of the metaverse, citing a promotional video showing teenagers in the Cleveland Museum of Art experiencing an animated version of Rousseau's "Buffalo Attacked by a Tiger" (1908). He critiques the metaverse's exclusion of suffering and death, contrasting it with real-world experiences. The article also mentions that both Gibson and Stephenson publicly distanced themselves from Facebook's use of the term on Twitter on November 6, 2021.