The Haunted Future: Interrogating Abusive Memorialization of Specters and Moral Agency in the Metaverse of Roblox

Drawing on hauntological insights, this paper examines the abuse of specters—the practice of domesticating and reproducing the stories of the dead for display and consumption. This problem is exacerbated by the rapid development of technologies for virtual spaces, which not only mediate but also create and distort narratives. With attention to youth radicalization across the globe, this paper focuses on a case study of the gaming company Roblox to illuminate how the abuse of specters shapes moral agency. The player-generated content “Gwangju of the Day” reconstructed a distorted narrative of the 1980 South Korean pro-democracy movement in Gwangju city. By drawing on hauntology, theological ethics, and scholarship on artificial intelligence, this paper offers guidelines for cultivating ethical relationships with the dead. The paper facilitates a conversation about how religious educators and faith communities can contribute to the formation of moral agency to engage counter memory for a liberatory future.