Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, put out an ad during the Super Bowl that pitches the metaverse as the solution to the ills of America’s working class.

The ad, titled “Old Friends. New Fun.” starts with a band of animatronic animals playing for a packed arcade and pizza establishment called Questy’s—a clear knock-off of Chuck E. Cheese. Through the first ten seconds of the ad, the lights begin to fade, and the crowd of pizza-eating arcade dwellers thins in a time-lapse until the Questy’s, and its animatronic animal band, lies completely dormant. A team of movers, likely hired by the Private Equity firm that bought the failing Questy’s, comes in and takes the animatronic dog, octopus, and penguins away.

The commercial then follows the dog’s life after Questy’s. He is put in the window of a pawn shop before getting a gig as an obstacle on a miniature golf course, where teens rip golf balls at the dog, now dressed in knight’s armor, that stands between them and the hole. It then cuts to our animatronic dog friend falling out of the back of a flat-bed truck driving through the desert and winds up in the vice of a trash compactor. A young woman saves the dog from that crushing fate, only to use him as a sign for a cafe at a space museum. But then, a museum goer, presumably using a Quest 2 for a museum attraction, places the device on the dog’s head, and he enters the metaverse, where Questy’s pizza joint is still alive. There, he’s virtually reunited with his former bandmates, the octopus, which is now being used as some alien prop for a run-down pit stop near Roswell, and the penguins, which have now found work as Christmas decorations. The commercial ends with the group giving a performance in the metaverse.

It infuriated me. 

In part, it was the pang of nostalgia and lost youth. The days spent at the local Chuck E. Cheese, or other arcade and pizza joints, after Little League or Pop Warner games on spring and summer Saturdays are something I won’t get back, at least until I get to experience those times vicariously through my own children (God willing). Even still, I assume it will never be the same.

The primary source of my vexation, however, is Meta shamelessly pitching itself as the solution to the problem it, and tech companies like it, created. Who do you think put Questy’s and its lovable bunch of animal-tronic rock stars out of business in the first place? Make no mistake: the animatronic dog in the trash compactor is every middle and working class American who have seen their jobs shipped overseas and their communities hollowed out by globalization not only enabled but encouraged by our political and economic elite. Now they have the gall to suggest you turn to the metaverse to recapture what you’ve lost.  It’s the kind of hero syndrome that would make an arsonist firefighter blush.