Zuck's Announcement Of Legs In The Metaverse Leads To Heavy Criticism

A new feature has rolled out to the Metaverse: legs. And, as always, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was heavily mocked.

Soon, it will be possible for avatars in the Metaverse to walk, hop, skip and jog about the virtual world on a pair of virtual legs that appear to closely resemble real legs. Many people weren't happy about this.

The move was announced in a video featuring the avatars of Mark Zuckerberg and Meta developer Aigerim Shorman, describing the features which the new generation of avatars (out next year) will have. The goal is to bring not just legs to Metaverse avatars, but to bring facial expressions and hand motions to avatars on phones and laptops. The new updates will also allow more brands into the Metaverse and let people buy clothes for their virtual avatars.

The legs, as Zuckerberg describes in the video, are the “most requested feature” for the Metaverse. He then went on to explain the difficulty of putting legs in the models for the Metaverse. Some speculated that, like the art style update following the widespread mocking of Zuck's avatar, the leg addition was due to public pressure.

Many users online expressed sarcastic joy about legs and what they will mean for people in the Metaverse.

Others interpreted the announcement video and the project overall as “dystopic.” Zuckerberg, who shared his plans in a recent interview with Joe Rogan, thinks the opposite, and has chosen to closely tie the project to his personal brand and image.

A number of posters pointed out that while Meta’s public push for the Metaverse seems to center on recreating social situations and bodies realistically (new partnerships with Zoom were also announced in the video) much of what people really want to do in a virtual world will be things they can’t do in reality.

A number of users mocked the amount of virtual ink that has already been spilled about the Metaverse, as well as Zuckerberg’s presentation.

Zuckerberg had a few defenders.

But in general, posters questioned the usefulness of the Metaverse overall, seeing it as something of a vanity project or power play.