Iceland Tourism Just Did the Funniest Take on Zuckerberg's Metaverse

Like other nations, Iceland’s tourism too suffered in the pandemic situation. But it recently hit upon a unique idea to draw global attention to its many attractions – a spoof on Mark Zuckerberg’s rebranding of Facebook (the company) as Meta.

End-October, Facebook CEO Zuckerberg, in his Founder’s Letter said, “We are at the beginning of the next chapter for the internet, and it’s the next chapter for our company too.”

Expanding on his idea, he said, “We’ve gone from desktop to web to mobile; from text to photos to video. But this isn’t the end of the line… The next platform will be even more immersive — an embodied internet where you’re in the experience, not just looking at it. We call this the metaverse, and it will touch every product we build.” In short, metaverse is expected to bring the physical and the digital world together. He also released a film on the same.

While the world debated or trolled the idea, Iceland went a step further. It created a whole new campaign that is a parody based on Zuckerberg’s announcement and the film sans the vitriol. The video ‘Icelandverse’ where they asked viewers to join their ‘new’, ‘immersive’ world which was ‘real’; a world where you would not require VR/AR headsets to be transported to the middle of a digital universe.

Some said an open-world experience this immersive wasn’t possible. But it’s already here. And you don’t even need silly VR headsets.

Introducing, âÂÂÂÂœ¨IcelandverseâÂÂÂÂœ¨#icelandverse pic.twitter.com/b1cf1REKl9

— Inspired by Iceland (@iceland) November 11, 2021

Even those who have not seen the Zuckerberg film cannot miss the similarities (dress to dialogue) between Icelandverse presenter – chief visionary officer Zack Mosbergsson (played by Icelandic actor and writer Jorundur Ragnarsson) – and Zuckerberg, including an earlier viral post showing the FB founder applying sunscreen.

Our very own Zack Mossbergsson even managed to convince his friend Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook to enter the #Icelandverse! Yes, really! pic.twitter.com/9D4EeALqsi

— Inspired by Iceland (@iceland) November 14, 2021

However, Zuckerberg too has taken the spoof in good humour.  “Amazing. I need to make a trip to the Icelandverse soon,” he responded in the comments section.