Last week, we spoke with sci-fi writer Neal Stephenson. He’s the guy who coined the term “metaverse” in 1992 to describe a 3D virtual world where people interact through avatars.

Today, the term is being thrown around a lot by tech and gaming companies that say they’re building the real metaverse. You probably noticed Facebook even changed its name to Meta and has really doubled down on this concept. And cue Microsoft, announcing its deal with Activision last week, saying it will provide the building blocks for the metaverse.

But what is the metaverse, and how real is it?

“The conceptual idea is a shared 3D world that uses [virtual reality] and [augmented reality] and has tens of thousands of people, and it’s all interoperable. But right now, the best definition of the metaverse is that it’s kind of a catch-all marketing term that a lot of different companies are using to convey the value they see in their potential future products,” said Eric Ravenscraft, product writer and reviewer at Wired.

On the show today, we’ll cut through some of the noise about the metaverse and break down what’s real, what’s hypothetical and what might remain science fiction.

In the News Fix: We’re running really, really low on semiconductors. We’ll talk about a new survey that shows U.S. manufacturers are about five days away from running out of chips and what that means for the supply chain. Also, we’ll dig into a report that reveals the effects of not treating mental health the same as physical health.

Later, a listener calls us with her hot take on the West Elm Caleb drama. And, if you think you know what bald eagles sound like, you’ll be surprised after you hear this week’s answer to the Make Me Smart question.

Here is everything we talked about today:

• “What Is the Metaverse, Exactly?” from Wired
• “In 2021, tech talked up ‘the metaverse.’ One problem: It doesn’t exist.” from The Washington Post
• “Chip Shortage Leaves U.S. Companies Dangerously Low on Semiconductors, Report Says” from The Wall Street Journal
• “Labor Department outlines unlawful imbalance in coverage between mental, physical care services” from Marketplace
• ICYMI: Caleb From West Elm Took Over TikTok But He Wasn’t As Bad As Claimed from BuzzFeed