Brussels: A European Union plan to throw a virtual party in the “metaverse” to engage young people in its policies flopped spectacularly after only six people turned up.
The EU Commission’s foreign aid department splashed out £332,000 ($500,000) to create the metaverse on which people could log in to a virtual concert to meet people and learn about the bloc.
Vince Chadwick’s visit to the EU Foreign Aid’s metaverse party.Credit:Twitter/@vchadw
The event, with its own virtual DJs playing music on repeat, was supposed to be so digitally enticing to young people that once they were there the EU would be able to educate them about its development policy.
But a correspondent for international development website Devex exposed the disappointing turnout. “I’m here at the ‘gala’ concert in the EU foreign aid department’s metaverse. After initial bemused chats with the roughly five other humans who showed up, I am alone,” Vince Chadwick posted online.
The warning signs were there.
Only 44 people had “liked” the online promotional video which featured futuristic avatars bopping along to pulsating house music. The metaverse is a new social media platform of online meeting rooms from Meta, the company that runs Facebook.
The event’s target audience, according to the commission, was 18-35 year olds “who identify as neutral about the EU and are not particularly engaged in political issues”.
Brussels unveiled the metaverse in mid-October, but it has struggled to gain support from even those working in the EU department behind it. Devex reports that one source from within the European Commission called the special metaverse, “digital garbage”.
And the fiasco has drawn scorn from a number of EU watchers.
“It’s a travesty that an EU institution feels the need to throw hundreds of thousands of euros behind this nonsense,” Jacob Kirkegaard of the German Marshall Fund said. “Anyone with a brain knows the metaverse is a dud.”
Responding to the criticism, an EU spokesman admitted: “The metaverse is not meeting our expectations. In its current state, its user interface is not user-friendly and appealing enough.”
Telegraph, London
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