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Keanu Reeves, living meme and star of The Matrix franchise, has recently weighed in on the idea of fans using his digital avatar for virtual sex. While he appeared surprisingly comfortable with the concept of becoming a digital pornstar, he was much less forgiving towards NFTs.
Speaking in a wide-ranging interview with The Verge, Keanu and Matrix co-star Carrie-Anne Moss discuss everything from cryptocurrency to virtual reality (VR). Keanu was told that many gamers requested hacks of the video game Cyberpunk 2077 allowing them to "have sex" with his character’s digital avatar. When asked if he was cool with that, he replied: “Oh my god, it’s always nice when it’s nice, y'know.”
“I, on the other hand, say no thank you,” Moss laughed, adding “Keanu’s fine with it.”
“Think of how much money is in porn, right?” continued Keanu. “You could not even have to be there, and people could have digital sex with your digital avatar.”
“What's it called right now? For members only, you could do a whole thing," Reeves said, presumably talking about OnlyFans.
"Then you got the VR thing... oh my god and they got the data on you with your arousal metrics – oh my gosh! So then you're in your [VR] suit with the arousal metrics through your members-only Metaverse X. Then you take everything off and how do you feel about the relationships you're in?"
"But then you hold that real thing and you’re like ‘oh man, I’m so glad we have reality,’” he continued.
Moss, however, was not convinced: “I hope I do not live to see this.”
The interview was in honor of The Matrix Awakens, a new open-world interactive tech demo created by Epic Games to show off their latest Unreal Engine 5. It’s also just in time for the much-awaited fourth installment of the Matrix series, The Matrix Resurrections, released this month.
Keanu and Moss were also asked whether they were into cryptocurrency and the ever-boggling world of NFTs, a “non-fungible token" that can be used to represent ownership of unique items in the digital world.
"A friend of mine bought some [cryptocurrency] for me a while back so,” Reeves replied. When asked if he’d done anything with his stash, he added: "I haven't had to. It's just like [sitting there]."
While discussing NFTs, Reeves was asked about his view on “the concept of digital scarcity and things that can't be copied.” To which Keanu burst out laughing and said: "...that are easily reproduced tehehehe."
Clearly, Keanu is not only a dab hand at playing the role of the simulated reality's messiah, but he’s also familiar with the “right-click and save image” technique.
