Can someone please ELI5 how a sober individual decides to purchase land in the metaverse?

Genuinely, one if my friends told me how like a year ago he purchased according to him “a plot of land in the metaverse” I thought he was fucking joking, but no. I did some google searching and am genuinely fucking bamboozled as to what the fuck that even means? So your telling me, people in the sound state of mind, took their money and spent tens of thousands, on land or parcels, in the fucking metaverse? What the actual fuck does that even mean? Did someone scam a bunch of people to drop real money on what’s basically land in fucking roblox? Holy shit I need a drink.