Taco Bell held a contest in 2022. The winners received the opportunity of a lifetime, the chance to be the first couple married at a Taco Bell in the metaverse. No, you didn’t read any part of that sentence incorrectly.
What’s even stranger is that they actually did it, and I was there. In the end, the nuptials were more than a marketing stunt. The Taco Bell wedding in the metaverse was a perfectly surreal representation of everything that makes 2023 such a bizarre time to be alive. And despite what all the Mark Zuckerberg fans will tell you, this post-ironic dog-and-pony show was also everything the metaverse should be; an absurdist half-representation of reality, fuelled by corporate interests, that manages to be sort of fun without living up to any of its promises. You can read about why I say all that in this deep dive into the Taco Bell Metaverse Wedding I wrote.
Bizarre really was the right word for it. From dancing hot sauce packets, to celebrities, to purple elephants, these are the 10 strangest things I saw at the Taco Bell metaverse wedding.
Before the wedding, the couple told me they actually had their first date at a Taco Bell
It wasn’t just Taco Bell-themed, it was a traditional indian ceremony. The groom rode in on a purple elephant and use Decentraland’s “make it rain” emote to throw dollar bills at the digital crowd
There was a licensed officiant who lead the ceremony. He was introduced only as ‘bear,’ and for some reason his avatar was a weird featureless ghost with arms and legs
The groom said his vows were written with help from ChatGPT. The first line was “I promise to keep your phone charged.”
The whole thing was mc’d by Kap Penn
Call it what you want, people reacted like it was the real thing
The wedding was livestreamed by a Twitch streamer who goes by Legion. If you were watching along at home, you wouldn’t have been able to hear anything, because Legion talked through every minute of the ceremony
The reception had a creepy ‘DJ’ with the Taco Bell logo for a head
There were dancing branded hot sauce packets with arms and legs at the reception
