These last few days I’ve been working on a jury review panel for a technical conference. I quickly lost count of how many submissions had the word “Metaverse” in the title.
In many cases, the submission didn’t even use VR. I think the authors just threw the word into the title because they figured reviewers would like it. But the committee was definitely not amused by seeing this word constantly tossed around like salad.
At some point, I got so frustrated with yet another gratuitous use of the word, that I finally said “They keep talking about the Metaverse, but I can’t see what any of this has to do with Neal Stephenson.”
At least that got a laugh from the other committee members.