Time’s VR cover leads to outpouring of disappointment… and genius

If you haven’t seen it already, look below to see how Time chose to depict its cover feature on virtual reality.

That’s Oculus Rift creator Palmer Luckey doing… something, on a (presumably virtual) beach, wearing a VR headset. It’s not an inspiring image, is it? In fact, it’s utterly absurd. As is Time’s opening gambit to the feature.

Palmer Luckey isn’t like other Silicon Valley nerds,” the clich-ridden article begins. He’s a nerd all right, but not the kind who went to a top-ranked university, wrote brilliant code or studied business plans.

He’s cheery and talks in normal sentences that are easy to understand. He was homeschooled, and though he did drop out of college, it was California State University, Long Beach, where he was majoring not in computer science but in journalism. He prefers shorts, and his feet are black because he doesn’t like wearing shoes, even outdoors. He doesn’t look like a guy who played Dungeons & Dragons so much as a character in Dungeons & Dragons. He’s a nerd from a different century…”

The internet, as one might imagine, has many strong opinions about all of this. Lots are bemoaning Time’s treatment of the subject, claiming that it’s a massive PR blow for PR. Others, however, are just having a laugh.

Here’s the actual cover…

And the joy it has gone on to evoke:

@AlexFerbrache @sokareemie @rje pic.twitter.com/8UlGZ1m3bE

— meowza (@meowza) August 6, 2015

https://twitter.com/rje/status/629354099021058048

RKO OUTTA NOWHERE @therealcliffyb pic.twitter.com/Z15FiQap1s

— JulesZappz (@JulesZappz) August 6, 2015

I… had… the time of my life pic.twitter.com/7ptZsru3s8

— Michaela Joffe (@joffeorama) August 6, 2015

https://twitter.com/Katixxia/status/629370309263630336

.@rje pic.twitter.com/fGZ5brw7QM

— Alex Ferbrache (@AlexFerbrache) August 6, 2015

https://twitter.com/celsiusgs/status/629361799553527812https://twitter.com/GAK/status/629373392941096960https://twitter.com/generaltao/status/629359051508445184