Mark Zuckerberg’s latest Meta morphosis fills me with a deep sense of dread. And some companies are too toxic to rebrand
“Facebook”. The word paints a thousand pictures, every one of them a portrait of some element of the human condition I could happily live without. Message requests from veterans in Montana that read, “Hello beautiful Lady.” A friend’s mum reposting an announcement about the increased risk of dog-napping in a town 200 miles from where she lives. Suggested posts for things I have no interest in: classic cars, muay thai and the Duchess of Cambridge. Pages where guys can share pictures of their sportfishing equipment and views on immigrants, if that also comes up. A distant relative’s attempts at winning a cottage in a staggeringly fake-looking contest. A helpful infographic about how vaccines can cause brain polyps. Engagement photoshoots. Fascism.
Yet it seems we are at the end of an era. After 17 years, billions of dollars in profit and some minor controversies involving the erosion of world democracy, Facebook has changed its name. From now on, the parent company will be known as Meta, to reflect the company’s shift in focus to the next digital frontier: the metaverse (or virtual reality to non-nerds).
