Greg Evans
Oct 29, 2021
In a long-rumoured move. Mark Zuckerberg officially announced on Thursday that he is rebranding his company from Facebook to “Meta”.
The CEO and founder of Facebook announced the name change during a Facebook Connect augmented and virtual reality conference on Thursday and how he now wants to bring people together in a “metaverse.”
“Facebook is one of the most-used products in the history of the world. It is an iconic social media brand, but increasingly, it just doesn’t encompass everything we do,” said the 37-year-old tech entrepreneur adding, “I want to anchor our work and our identity in what we are building toward.”
Basically, from the looks of things, Facebook as a brand will still exist and the website itself won’t be affected – neither should its connected apps Instagram and WhatsApp. Instead, he wants to create a virtual reality world like something from a sci-fi movie or a throwback to the mid-2000s when everyone spent all their time on Second Life and World of Warcraft.
WATCH: Sneak Peek at Facebook metaverse https://t.co/rUGGiJeMLr— Insider Paper (@Insider Paper) 1635442005
As you can imagine, the string of controversies linked to Facebook over the past few years have not made Zuckerberg the most popular person and any attempt to rebrand his global company was always going to be met with criticism and the inevitable mockery.
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Sure enough, it didn’t take the fine folks of the internet to start makings memes about Meta because what else did Zuckerberg think was going to happen?
Facebook renaming to Meta like https://t.co/PjfhEaxLhV— Dr. Parik Patel, BA, CFA, ACCA Esq. 💸 (@Dr. Parik Patel, BA, CFA, ACCA Esq. 💸) 1635446576
Can't have problems with Facebook if the company isn't called Facebook #Meta https://t.co/AdZvrD1bWi— Luke Smith (@Luke Smith) 1635447046
Remember Facebook?! https://t.co/trw4w9wi6X— Shutts (@Shutts) 1635446772
https://t.co/5vjfuwMmrR— Adam Nayman (@Adam Nayman) 1635446556
One might say they are getting the F out. 🤷♂️ https://t.co/pQhalZLvR2 https://t.co/s3rWZeSNaO— Lance Storm (@Lance Storm) 1635448779
Same vibe, similar logo https://t.co/odpsHfWN7W— Brian Klaas (@Brian Klaas) 1635452484
This would have been way more meta https://t.co/qeNg8YZhvm— Morning Brew ☕️ (@Morning Brew ☕️) 1635446872
@ditzkoff https://t.co/8b6egXpgt5— Phil™ (@Phil™) 1635445733
Changing name to Meat— Wendy’s (@Wendy’s) 1635449104
There was a lot of wordplay on the word “Meta”.
Gonna take awhile to get used to saying “He was radicalized in a META group”— The Daily Show (@The Daily Show) 1635447095
As in "Zuckerberg never 'meta' bit of Far Right propaganda he'd take down." https://t.co/qCoIVmlAiq— Dan Slott (@Dan Slott) 1635446559
@VisionsofWhisky @washingtonpost "Suckerbook" would be quite appropriate as well.....— CÒѧËŔVÅŤÏ§M SŮX (@CÒѧËŔVÅŤÏ§M SŮX) 1635445787
Then came the photo editing...
https://t.co/MqtMcjQVh0— HappyToast ★ (@HappyToast ★) 1635451258
https://t.co/1wNJR9vWJV— Jonny Sharples (@Jonny Sharples) 1635456345
I am legally required to post this https://t.co/iwHdCFF7Oc— Tom Victor (@Tom Victor) 1635450090
https://t.co/fnyydsumV0— everest (@everest) 1635449103
You really have to suspect who was behind this new rebrand. Is this a storyline from Succession?
Mark Zuckerberg is like if Kendall Roy was good with computers. https://t.co/ZCVGWt5qg2— Scott Tobias (@Scott Tobias) 1635445398
The team behind the Facebook's name change to Meta https://t.co/AWY2lrczsg— Lights, Camera, Pod (@Lights, Camera, Pod) 1635448422
feeling meta https://t.co/clLob5gmir— Dan Diamond (@Dan Diamond) 1635446620
And yes, that is a bottle of BBQ sauce on the shelf behind him.
Zuck is just like us! Sauce on the living room shelf https://t.co/nq0QdWISzN— Anthony Miale (@Anthony Miale) 1635440897
If we are really analysing the word “meta” then you have to say that the Animaniacs were doing it long before Zuckerberg.
We did meta first.— 📣 Animaniacs NEW SEASON NOW STREAMING (@📣 Animaniacs NEW SEASON NOW STREAMING) 1635446504
Even Jack Dorsey, the boss of Twitter, couldn’t resist taking a pop.
meta: referring to itself or to the conventions of its genre; self-referential.— jack⚡️ (@jack⚡️) 1635445457
All we can say is thank goodness they didn’t go with something like Skynet or The Matrix. That would have been too nightmarish to live with.
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