Some will remember.

It was called reality.

Soon – this summer – they will forget it.

Instead, they will immerse themselves in a solipsistic, ersatz reality styled Holoride in which artificially generated scenery and characters such as happy-faced gnomes will flit across their eyes – without their eyes actually seeing them – because they don't actually exist.

But which they can pretend are real. 

It's the Matrix – on wheels.

Some may remember the movie – in which humans existed in a virtual reality, literally plugged into the Matrix, a thoroughly convincing – an immersive – experience that kept them from experiencing reality or even being aware of it. Virtual steak diners at virtual five star restaurants, virtual friends and virtual experiences full of lots of virtual – that is to say, not actual – experiences.

Which they never got to experience because they didn't know they weren't experiencing.

That was a movie.

This summer, it's an Audi – and soon, probably every other brand of car – driven by the same strange compulsion to immerse oneself in the virtual and ersatz that has made so many people unable – unwilling – to unplug from their sail fawns and look at reality.