For emerging technology “veterans” we imagine there’s a collective eye-roll about the recent furor around Facebook (and then Microsoft, and then others’) announcements about the “Metaverse”. The idea of an alternative digital “world” has existed in various guises for a long time, so we’ve asked ourselves what’s so new that it has prompted the deluge of recent headlines. Is it the accelerated digitisation of the workplace brought about by Covid-19, the appearance of digital fashion items on gaming platforms, and the more widespread availability and adoption of blockchain technologies - prompting the boom in NFT’s - all three, or something else?