Mark Zuckerberg responds to the metaverse meme with a redesign

(CNN) — Mark Zuckerberg, responding to a burst of memes mocking the graphics of Meta’s latest project, listened to his critics and changed his selfie.

Zuckerberg launched Horizon Worlds, a virtual reality social app, earlier this week in France and Spain, sharing a rather flat and goofy digital avatar in front of the Eiffel Tower and the animated Sagrada Familia.

The internet immediately spiked, mocking what many users saw as (hopefully) the initial graph for Meta startups has been spent at least $10 billion in the last year.

New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose on Twitter compared the chart to “worse than 2008 wii gamesSlate uses the term “buttcheeks.” Twitter is less friendly: “very ugly” and “an international laughing stock.” Many compared it to early 90s charts, noting how lifeless and childish the selfies were. Zuckerberg quickly came up with the “dead eye” designation.

Apparently Zuckerberg has seen the meme, because on Friday he announced that a major update was coming, along with a new avatar image. On Facebook and Instagram, Zuckerberg posted photos of his more sophisticated looking avatar.

“I know the photo I posted earlier this week is pretty basic – it was taken very quickly to celebrate the launch,” Zuckerberg wrote in the caption, adding that the graphics on Horizon are “capable of doing so much more” and “improve very quickly.”

Zuckerberg added that he would share more details at Connect, the company’s annual conference, which took place in October last year.

Facebook plans to spend at least $10 billion by 2021 on Facebook Reality Labs, devoting significant resources to virtual and augmented reality products and services in last year’s third-quarter results.

Horizon Worlds, from the Meta for Quest headset, is now available in the US, Canada and the UK.

Roderick Gilbert

"Entrepreneur. Internet fanatic. Certified zombie scholar. Friendly troublemaker. Bacon expert."

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