(Un)linking value in metaversal environments

As digital social life becomes increasingly fragmented and mediated, existing consumer culture frameworks struggle to explain how social bonds form in immersive digital environments. In particular, the concept of linking value offers limited insight into emerging forms of digitally mediated social connection. Drawing on a netnographic analysis of VR-related subreddits, focused on shared movie-watching experiences in social metaversal environments, this study pursues three objectives: (1) to reconceptualize linking value beyond tribalism through heterotopia; (2) to examine how immersive spatial configurations shape social connection; (3) to uncover the sociotechnical conditions that facilitate the emplacement of metaversal heterotopias. Findings show that loneliness underpins the emergence of these spaces as compensatory sites of connection; that flexible spatial configurations afford users agency to negotiate norms and legitimacy; and that metaversal heterotopias foster new socialities while risking disconnection from offline relationships, revealing the paradoxical dynamics of (un)linking value in digital consumer culture.