Metaverse as Concept

Jun Furukawa

Keywords: Metaverse, VR, Internet, Utopia

TL;DR: Outlining the metaverse as concept

Abstract: In recent years, the term "metaverse" has been attracting a lot of attention due to Facebook's name change and other factors. However, this is not the first time that the metaverse has attracted attention; it had already gained momentum at the beginning of the 21st century. With this background, it can be said that the technology has already reached a certain degree of maturity and is entering the stage of social implementation. On the other hand, the social discussion on what it means for humanity and how society should deal with it remains immature. The purpose of this paper is to outline the metaverse as a concept to fill this gap. This paper will discuss how the Internet and VR have been positioned in society, while pointing out that they have closely overlapped but have maintained a delicate distance. It will then focus on cases and phenomena that cannot be distinguished between the two, and point out that the key to exploring the uniqueness of the metaverse lies in the subtle relationship between the two.