Facebook (now Meta) released the Oculus Rift consumer virtual reality headset in Menlo Park, California, United States, following Palmer Luckey's Kickstarter-funded prototype. Using head tracking and stereoscopic displays, the Rift immersed users in computer-generated environments with responsive movement, enabling gaming, education, and therapeutic applications. Though requiring powerful computers and suffering from motion sickness issues, the Rift revived mainstream interest in virtual reality after decades of failed attempts, establishing VR as viable consumer technology.

Virtual reality's immersive environments influenced contemporary poetry's exploration of presence, embodiment, and simulated experience. Poets created VR poetry experiences where readers navigate three-dimensional textual spaces, examining how spatial arrangement and bodily movement affect interpretation. The technology also inspired reflection on reality's constructed nature, with writers using VR metaphors to explore perception's malleability, the ethics of simulated experience, and whether virtual encounters can generate genuine emotional responses comparable to physical presence.