VR continues to stink because it does not smell.

scent is the most authentic sense. For virtual reality to feel truly immersive, it must first stink.

VR STILL STINKS, and its stench is multifaceted. It reeks of wealthy white men who consistently overfund and overhype the always-on-the-verge-of-a-breakthrough technology. Despite its purveyors' claims that it fosters empathy and inclusion, it has a festering funk of entrenched privilege. It's too expensive, and it's only getting worse. Meta's and the crypto community's forays into VR are likely to worsen the situation. Some also complain that it smells underbaked: in VR, no one has legs. But, perhaps most importantly, the metaverse stinks because it smells like nothing.

VR's blind spot is smell. Despite the fact that convincing smell technology is becoming available, most VR technologists are unconcerned about the lack of smells.

Smell is arguably our most authentic sense—the sense that most connects us to reality. If virtual reality is to live up to its full potential, it must wake up and smell its nauseating colorlessness.

BEFORE YOU TURN your nose up at Smell-O-Vision 2.0, get a whiff of what whiffing can do for you.

Smell helps us detect incoming threats. We won’t eat food that smells spoiled, and we move away from a hint of smoke or gas. We are evolutionarily programmed to respond to smells swiftly, and make lasting judgments about them. Threat-detection in smell also reminds us that we’re vulnerable, and blurs the lines between our bodies and the environment. These factors all deepen immersion—one of virtual reality’s chief aims.

Smell also heightens the emotional stakes and places an experience in the context of our personal histories. A stimulus travels from the sensory organ to the brain's more evolutionary recent thalamus, which handles complex processing skills, for sight, sound, taste, and touch. Smell is distinct: It's all the same old brain. Smells bypass the thalamus and travel directly from the nose to the olfactory bulbs, which are located behind the area where your eyeglasses rest on your face. This tongue-like protrusion of nerves in the brain processes smells and is closely linked to older brain regions, specifically the amygdala, which deals with emotions, and the hippocampus, which deals with memory. When a significant memory forms, you usually experience emotions. Memory, emotion, and smell will all merge if you're also sniffing something. As a result, smells evoke memories.As a result, smells can evoke memories with startling vividness: the bright, acrid hit of chlorine undercut with stale sweat that transports you unmistakably back to your high school swim team's locker room; the downy blend of rosewater, burnt toast, and cigarettes that recalls your grandmother's love.

All of the immersive, world-building magic that smell can provide aligns with what VR aspires to provide. VR's primary goal these days is to allow users to experience what it's like to be someone else. It's a "quest towards embodiment," according to Lisa Messeri, a Yale assistant professor of sociocultural anthropology who studies virtual reality. "And when we think about what the body is, it's this incredibly reductive compilation of senses." Messeri is quick to point out that "embodiment is so much more than a collection of senses"—mistaking embodiment for empathy is a blunder that VR storytellers can avoid. However, sensory experiences continue to be the primary levers that virtual reality can use to immerse us in their worlds. 

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