Neal Stephenson’s 1992 science-fiction novel that popularized the term “metaverse” was Snow Crash.
The novel depicts a shared 3D virtual environment called the Metaverse, where people interact through digital avatars. Stephenson’s vision combined networked computing, virtual spaces, corporate power and social identity, making the book an important cultural reference for later discussions of online worlds.
Snow Crash did not invent every idea associated with virtual reality, and its Metaverse is a fictional literary concept rather than a single product. The word itself was formed from “meta” and “universe,” suggesting a world beyond ordinary physical reality.
Modern companies and platforms have reused the term for social, gaming and commercial virtual environments. Those products differ greatly from Stephenson’s imagined system, so citing the novel does not mean that one specific modern platform is the metaverse.