The metaverse has ended. The jokes it generated will outlive it. Meta has confirmed the shutdown of Horizon Worlds on VR — off the Quest store by March, off all VR by June 15 — after close to $80 billion in losses. Mark Zuckerberg’s virtual world is being retired, but its cultural legacy — as a source of enduring internet comedy — is fully secured.
The jokes began almost immediately after the platform launched. When images and videos from Horizon Worlds first circulated widely, showing cartoonish floating avatars in sparse virtual environments, the gap between the immersive digital future Zuckerberg had described and the product that appeared on screen was comic. Memes comparing the metaverse to gaming environments from a decade earlier spread virally across the same social media platforms that the metaverse was supposed to supersede.
Each subsequent development generated new material. Zuckerberg’s attempt to address the graphics criticism by posting an updated avatar selfie was greeted with fresh mockery. Reports of Reality Labs’ billion-dollar quarterly losses prompted jokes about the cost per user. The platform’s slowly declining user metrics — against the backdrop of a billion-user projection — became a running gag that users revisited with each new earnings report.
The shutdown announcement was the comedy’s final act. Users on social media competed to produce the most cutting summary of the failure. “All five users are reportedly devastated” was widely shared. The $80 billion figure generated disbelief expressed through humor. The image of Zuckerberg quietly retiring the project that he had named his company after provided the kind of irony that writes its own punchline.
The metaverse’s comedy legacy reflects something genuine: the public’s capacity to identify and puncture corporate grandiosity. Zuckerberg promised a revolution and delivered a platform that was comedically underpopulated relative to its ambitions. The jokes were the public’s way of marking the gap. They worked. Close to $80 billion later, that gap has been acknowledged.