The world (and by the world, I mean a reasonably high percentage of Twitter users) is freaking out over this photo of Mark Zuckerberg taking to the stage at the Samsung Unpacked event at MWC 2016 on Sunday. The photo shows Zuckerberg jovially strolling alongside a crowd of journalists, who are each wearing a Gear VR headset, unaware that the billionaire is casually striding up the aisle next to them.
The image has been branded an allegory of our future; wherein we’ll all be hooked up to head-mounted displays while the one-percenters of the world are left to blissfully run circles around us. As such, it has started to do the rounds on the Internet, popping up every 10 seconds or so on Twitter, attracting a ton of attention on Reddit and leading to a plethora of news posts regarding why it’s such an accurate portrayal of where we as a society are headed.
Except it’s not. Why? Because it looks dumb.
The next wave of virtual reality technology is suitably impressive, with the Oculus Rift having already made waves in the PC gaming community and the Gear VR proving that smartphone-based VR can be almost as inveigling as its premium counterparts. Even the Google Cardboard, which is exactly as primitive as it sounds, proved to be an enticing gateway into this new breed of VR tech, offering a semblance of the full experience that nonetheless reportedly convinced Google to continue working on a new, more advanced head-mounted display.
But there’s no escaping that it looks dumb. Placing an HMD on your face while waving your arms around in front of you is not a good look, with even Oculus founder Palmer Luckey admitting that VR headsets aren’t exactly for the fashion-conscious. When he was questioned about whether or not VR headsets should be more stylish, he quipped: “If you’re a gamer, and you have high-end graphics cards… you’re probably not the kind of person who cares about fashion.”
So in a world that is increasingly conscious of its image, with Mark Zuckerberg’s own Facebook being partially responsible for this, how on Earth will there come to exist a future in which we as a society are willing to each be hooked up to these things? How will we collectively allow ourselves to look like this guy?
That’s not a slight on this poor, unwitting fellow, either, who’s just doing his job unaware that he’s about to be pictured in one of the most widely circulated photographs of the year thus far. EVERYONE looks dumb when they’re wearing a VR headset, regardless of their physical appearance or their societal standing. The only people who actually believe that VR is going to attract an audience outside of its market of tech enthusiasts are tech journalists, i.e. middle-aged white men who would see no harm in teaming a pair of bootcut denim jeans with jet black loafers; the kind of people who tried to make Google Glass a “thing,” and who still listen to Muse of their own free will.
To make VR as globally successful as those sharing this photo seem to believe it will be, it will need to become an everyday household item that people wouldn’t mind strapping to their faces when there are others nearby, but this won’t happen. There’s a reason why the iPod took off instead of the technically superior Zune, and why no one will bat an eyelid when you drop couple of thousand dollars on an iMac, yet constructing a vastly more proficient gaming rig that just so happens to glow red like the eyes of Cerberus will incite a few derisive snorts.
For our future to mirror this image of Mark Zuckerberg strolling beside VR-wearing journalists, someone, somewhere is going to have to make VR look fresh.
Unfortunately, I don’t think such a person exists.
