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Beset by complaints that Facebook's social media platforms were creating mass anxiety among teenagers wracked by woes of loneliness, self-doubt, and body-shaming—by dispensing socially destablizing lies, medical untruths, political slanders, disturbing rumors, and fake news—a besotted Mark Zuckerberg attempted to quiet the uproar with a diverting announcement: Facebook was adopting a new corporate identity. Henceforth, the tech behemoth is to be known as "Meta"—short for "Metaverse."  

On October 5, Facebook insider Frances Haugen went public with reams of evidence exposing Facebook's cavalier approach to the mental and emotional damage its social media platforms were creating—and profiting from. As Haugen explained, Facebook had become "a thing that people used to numb themselves when their lives were horrible." 

Haugen's warning comes at a critical moment in human history. Pandemics. Disease. Global Warming. Climate Chaos. Pandemics. Disease. War. Police Violence. Homelessness. Inflation. Racism. Authoritarianism. Has there ever been such a rich opportunity to profit off the misery of millions? On the Facebook ledger, however, all of these converging disasters add up to a series of potential "profit points." 

In the aftermath of Haugen's disclosures, Zuckerberg was ready with a well-crafted distraction—a digital presentation designed to display the seductive attractions of living inside his imaginary alternative Me-a-verse. 

"Look!" a digitized Zuck was heard to proclaim from the 2-dimensional confines of millions of laptop and I-phone screens: in a world gone Meta, we can now strap VR helmets over our heads and enter a shared media multiverse populated by friends and colleagues scattered all over the planet. And "you wouldn't even have to change your pajamas." (Heck, you wouldn't even have to get out of bed.) 

You could "build" your own Meta-mansion to "live in." You could locate it on a mountaintop or along a lush tropical coastline. You could then create the perfect weather outside. And when it becomes necessary to do something productive to earn a living, you could simply press a button to be transported to a shared "virtual office headquarters" in Metaspace. 

Once "there," you could mingle with other "virtual" employees sharing make-believe office spaces with desks, whiteboards, and floating communication resources that can be plucked from mid-air and manipulated by the sweep of a hand. 

And as an Associated Press article observed, if virtual work in a virtual workspace with virtual work-mates, grows tiresome, users would "be able to attend virtual concerts or fence with holograms of Olympic athletes." 

But while Zuckerberg promoted his Metaverse as magical and alluring, Haugen saw its advent as menacing and alarming, noting: "these immersive environments are extremely addictive and they encourage people to unplug from the reality we actually live." 

With a nod to the importance of "real human contact," Zuck promised a Metaverse that would invoke algorithms to create "real chance encounters" with other sim-ployees. In his special-effects "demo real," Zuckerburg explains how you can grab your headset or VR glasses and "instantly you're in your homespace"—a version of your cramped, real-world living space but pumped up with new rooms, rare works of art (you want a copy of DiVinci's Mona Lisa on your wall? Done!) and lots of trendy new Ikea-sourced furniture that you won't even have to worry about assembling! 

During the intro to his parallel universe, we are introduced to some of Zuckerbot's menagerie of humanoid avatars—aka co-workers. Some look human and realistic. Others looked computer-generated. Others resemble cartoon characters. And if all this over-stimulation starts to drive you bonkers, Zuck proposes a ready remedy. Take off your VR headset and return to reality? Of course not. As Zuck explains: "You can just teleport off to your private bubble." (I predict that phrase could become a common diss in some future dystopia. As in: "Stop your complaining! Why don't you just teleport off to your own little bubble!") 

If you haven't seen it, here's a sampler from Zuckerberg's debut as the Metaverse's chief huckster. 

When Stephen Colbert aired Zuck's Metamorphic video pitch on The Late Show, he zoned-in on the scene where Meta-mensch Zuckerberg strolls through a magnificent room with a magnificent view of a magnificent beachfront when a floating screen suddenly appears in mid-air and a female employee asks: "Hey, are you coming?" 

"Sure," Zuckerberg replies, "I just have to find something to wear." Instantly, another body materializes on the far side of the virtual room. It's a Zuckerberg doppleganger. Waving his hand like a magician, Zuck points at the Zuckerdupe and uses the replicant to model a series of possible outfits. One is a Halloween skeleton pullover and another is a NASA spacesuit. Zuck finally settles on a simple colorless black sweater-and-pants combo. One problem: Zuckerberg is already wearing the same combo of black sweater and pants. 

As Colbert noted: "So! You had the option of being anything in the world and you chose to look like Mark Zuckerberg wearing exactly what you're already wearing?" 

When Zuck's avatar arrives to greet his pals in their imaginary "Horizon Workroom" Metaverse office space, it looks like they've decided to spend the workday gathered around a conference table idly playing cards and floating weightlessly, as if they were in orbit. 

One staffer has opted to appear as an oversized red metal robot with flashlights for eyes and, in an attempt at some in-house humor, Zuckerberg jokes: "I thought I was supposed to be the robot." 

And what's on the agenda for today's meeting? Little more than poking computer-generated fingers at computer-generated buttons to converse with computer-generated work-mates in other imaginary realms of the Metaverse. And what radical social insights do they have to impart? One wants to share a Smartphone video of her dog running back and forth in her backyard. Another colleague boasts about discovering a street artist who covers walls with "3-D street art." In a shared video of this new art-form, the colors and shapes begin to emerge from the side of a painted brick wall and—somehow, someway—the next thing you know, the undulating graffiti-monster has taken over the conference room, allowing Zuck and his buds to playfully float around and twitch its multicolored tendrils. 

Getting a bit confused? Well, hang on tight because, at this point, the hulking robot avatar offers another diversion. "Here's something I think you'll love," it chirps: "Check out the Forest Room." And, in the blink of an algorithm—and at the whim of a single employee, acting without consensus—the entire Conference Room is transformed into a thick, green forest. Complete with phantasmagoric creatures floating between the trees. Or, as Zuckerberg's avatar puts it: "Koi fish that fly? That's new!" 

Sorry, Mark. It's not just "new," it's also not real. It's patently fake—as is the rest of Zuckerbot's Metaverse. 

The whole Metaverse seems designed to hypnotize hoards of bored users by fortifying the addictive power of imaginary sights and sounds. 

We need to start dropping red flags, fellow humans. If the Metaverse is allowed to metastasize, the sci-fi finish will have us all carousing around in perfect, imaginary computer-generated wonderlands, alternatively hyper-aroused by other-worldly hallucinations or mesmerized and numbed. Meanwhile, back in dreary reality, our mortal bodies are all sitting idle in our high-rent rooms, swaddled in soiled underwear, while our heads are jammed into VR Meta-buckets built to flood our brains with endless, empty fantasies. 

Let's not call it the Metaverse. Let's call this abomination by its rightful name: Zuckerburg, Zuckerville, or Zucklandia. No matter how you spell it, it zucks.