Metaverse events: hyperreal performativity of the synthetic self

This paper examines the transformation of leisure in an age of acceleration, where digital and social mediation permeate everyday experience. As virtual environments become pivotal to contemporary leisure, the convergence of DARQ technologies (Distributed ledger systems, Artificial Intelligence, Extended Reality, Quantum computing) accelerates the metaverse and signals a shift towards synthetic society and a new experiential paradigm. In events, this manifests as XREvents: immersive, persistent environments that integrate physical and digital realms. Drawing on the work of Baudrillard and Butler, we argue that events, once anchored in physical settings, increasingly constituted through digital-to-DARQ mediation. XREvents function as intensifying hyperrealities; spaces of freedom, fantasy and sensory saturation. DARQ acceleration transforms these environments into seductive dreamscapes of an emerging synthetic society, challenging ontological and socio-cultural structures. XREvents enable the cloning of synthetic selves and the reanimation of subjects, allowing users to relive experience and emotion. While this blurs the line between freedom and algorithmic performativity, the promise of XREvents opens new modes of commodification. As synthetic society advances, these DARQ dreamscapes may become commodified performative prisons in which the self is simultaneously lost and found within a vortex of hyperreality.