First episode of the new year has us asking, What is Real? A little bit of Baudrillard and The Matrix: Resurrections help us understand why Facebook is now called Meta and why our reality is becoming harder to distinguish from virtual reality. Let's trace the history of the Metaverse to its source and look at how HBO Max is using it to showcase its intellectual property in The Matrix, Ready Player One, and even Space Jam. Please Tweet at us @talkingtropes or I swear to god I will make a Talking Tropes NFT. You have to stop me by tweeting what you think of this podcast or a topic we should do next or the blockchain will be stuffed full of TTNFTs.