Meta-Images: Visual Storytelling Across Virtual Worlds and Hybrid Platforms

Abstract

As visual communication migrates across immersive environments and hybrid media platforms, a new form of visual storytelling emerges: the meta-image—an image that is aware of its own circulation, transformation, and participatory remixing. This paper explores the meta-image as both a symbolic and computational entity that organizes narrative, gesture, and cultural memory within digital ecosystems. Drawing on visual theory, media archaeology, and examples from virtual worlds and augmented social platforms, the paper investigates how meta-images function as mutable storytelling interfaces. We argue that meta-images redefine authorship and spectatorship by fostering recombinant visuality across games, filters, memes, and 3D environments. Through a close analysis of visual practices on platforms like VRChat, TikTok AR, and Fortnite Creative, the study reveals how storytelling has shifted from linear narrative to procedural, affective, and modular patterns of image-based communication.