The cyberpunk future we were promised is at Wendy’s

I went in there to get a homestyle chicken sandwich (and I went in to avoid tragedy) and there was an employee working the line with a small computer tablet of some type taking customer orders before they got to the counter (so all they’d have to do is confirm and pay) and this woman two in front of me was like “number three” and I noticed there was a blinking Bluetooth mic in her ear. Cyborgs! Screens everywhere! I asked the employee if there were a whole bunch of tablets charging in the back so she could grab a spare if her battery ran out and she was like yeah.

This is the thing: the cyborg aesthetic looks trashy and downmarket in practice! It belongs at Wendy’s! I’m not on Second Life even though I loved Snow Crash as a kid and face it, it’s a note-perfect Metaverse. So my thesis: the technologies of miniaturization and virtuality are for people without capital, land, and leisure time. If you’re not a nerd, why do you need a laptop? To work on the go. Why do you need a wireless headset? Because you need to be able to talk while you’re doing something else. Why are you in Second Life? Because you can’t go to, I don’t know, Calafate.