In early September, Mark Zuckerberg ran into a Meta lab in Pittsburgh, sat in front of over 100 high-resolution cameras, and prepared to prove his metaverse critics wrong.

The photo shoot was designed to create a more realistic avatar in the likeness of Meta’s CEO, as the social media giant scrambled to demonstrate that its $10 billion-a-year bet on a futuristic 3D digital world known as the metaverse was not a failure.

In the weeks prior, the Facebook founder had faced public ridicule after an earlier cartoon-like avatar selfie went viral for all the wrong reasons.

That rudimentary image was widely derided as “shameful” and “soulless,” piling pressure on Zuckerberg to show that he hadn’t misjudged staking his company’s future on a vision of the metaverse that he had already…