This image was removed due to legal reasons.

Ever since a guy got onto a Brooklyn L train decked out in a pair of Samsung virtual reality goggles earlier this month, the Internet has been busy mourning the loss of civil society. Surely trading the sights and sounds of a New York subway for an alternate reality is only a step or two away from crawling into liquid-filled pods and plugging ourselves into the Matrix.



Remember that time a guy got onto a crowded San Francisco Muni train wielding a .45-caliber pistol and not a single iPhone-enraptured passenger noticed until he fired? One wonders what the criminals of the future will be able to get away with when we're not just lost in the digital world of our phones, but in an entirely virtual one.

Really, though, if you're coming from a historical perspective, virtual reality seems like the obvious evolution of the daily commute:

This image was removed due to legal reasons.


This image was removed due to legal reasons.


The identity of the VR-immersed L train rider is no longer a mystery. Dimitri Lozovoy contacted Gizmodo to say that that he was surprised anyone found this odd. He thinks you're the one who looks bizarre, hunched over your game of Candy Crush on your way to work. "People look weird when they play," he wrote. "They bow down to their phone, unnaturally overstress their necks and eye muscles trying to watch the tiny phone screen."

Yes, he is the healthy normal one, staring into the virtual, ergonomically-correct abyss.