The essence of this post is to gain a better understanding of Mark Zuckerberg’s new meta initiative and how consumerism plays into the “Meta mission”. Facebook has completely revolutionized the way we interact with the Internet. Facebook’s technology completely paved the way for other companies and brands to explain the way we communicate and, more importantly, think. Consumerism was shaped by Zuckerberg on Facebook as he learned how to use our data to get us to consume more. This begs a few questions. If Facebook was so successful why have they transformed into Meta? How will this affect future consumerism? Hopefully, this post will give you a better understanding of these questions as we try to answer them.

In the past three years, Facebook has become an extremely controversial topic as privacy scandals have emerged. Although very traumatizing and scary, it gives us tons of insight into why Zuckerberg has created this new initiative. With the help from Kevin Roose via The New York Times we can gain insight as to why this is happening! There is a combination of many things that could better explain why this shift is happening. From reasonable logic and a little bit of research, we can determine that Mark wants to move away from Facebook because of four likely reasons. The first is an age war, the second being platform risk, the third being regulatory risk, and the fourth reason being the repetitional damage the company has had over the past few years. In short, the move was aimed to reach younger audiences, get rid of regulatory obligations from Google and Apple, and rebrand themselves in order to escape the backlash of Facebook’s wrongdoings.

This move to the metaverse is going to change consumerism as we know it. As of right now, consumerism revolves around apps like Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok. These companies are selling our data by tracking engagement and what we click on. This makes it easy for them to have our data and market to us. Yet, with the future rooted technology that only increases engagement, how will this affect consumerism? The road ahead is not certain but what we do know is that augmented and virtual realities are definitely coming into our everyday lives. Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus proves this further. This being said, the future of consumerism is also unknown to an extent. What we do know is that history repeats itself and that consumerism will take a similar shape in the digital world. The advertisement techniques, the companies, they will all be the same, just digitally.

To conclude, reasonable research shows that Meta is a last-ditch effort to save the company that Zuckerberg created. It is also an effort to create an increased engagement and a better idea of how to sell consumerism in the metaverse.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Do you think Meta is a good option when entering the metaverse?
  2. How will consumerism change in the metaverse?
  3. How have you been effected by consumerism?
  4. Have you realized Facebook has taken advantage of your privacy? How does that make you feel?
  5. Can metaverse companies be trusted with companies like Facebook using their audience?

Sources:

Newberry, Christina. “47 Facebook Stats That Matter to Marketers in 2021.” Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard, 11 Jan. 2021, https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-statistics/. 

Price, Rob. “Zuckerberg Viewed Instagram as a Threat That Could Hurt Facebook’s Business before Buying It, Internal Emails Show.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 29 July 2020, https://www.businessinsider.com/zuckerberg-2012-instagram-threat-to-facebook-harm-business-2020-7. 

Robertson, Adi. “Facebook Is Making Oculus’ Worst Feature Unavoidable.” The Verge, The Verge, 19 Aug. 2020, https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/19/21375118/oculus-facebook-account-login-data-privacy-controversy-developers-competition. 
Roose, Kevin. “The Metaverse Is Mark Zuckerberg’s Escape Hatch.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 29 Oct. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/29/technology/meta-facebook-zuckerberg.html