Snow Crash is satire. Zuck didn’t get the joke.

The 1980s view of cyberspace was disembodied techno-warlocks soaring through floating numbers to avoid getting their brains melted by anti-intrusion software. Neal Stephenson turned that into a mall.

Second Life also built that torment nexus, but just the 3D rendered MUSH part. They parted out infinite virtual space into a cramped trailer park waaay before Decentraland’s cocaine fantasy version. SL’s users were like half trans furries and half the most basic bitch dolled-up human avatars, who on reflection probably had even worse body-image issues than the trans furries. This is all to say that the average user was horny in a way that the modern web cannot reflect. I don’t know if VR Chat properly captured that, but I’m certain Horizon Worlds fucked it up, because avatars don’t exist below the waist.

Well. Didn’t.