Do you remember Roberto Benigni’s catchphrase of the late eighties? “Achilles, change your name!” The reference was obviously to Occhetto, the last secretary of the PCI committed to the Bolognina change that would lead to the birth of the PDS. Who knows what Occhetto, Benigni and all the militants of what was the largest communist party in Western Europe would have said at the time if they had known that, 20 years later, the company that symbolized the postmodern capitalism: Facebook. Indeed: Meta, as its founder Mark Zuckerberg renamed it. Immediately raising a question in many of the 2.80 billion users around the world: are we so sure that there was no better name?
Why Zuckerberg chose Meta
Why “Zuck” chose Meta is well known: the name stands for metaverse, the ideological – technological – videogame horizon towards which the social network par excellence wants to bring us all, a kind of Second Life, only cooler. Which, not being able to read or write, is a magnificent diversion after all of the privacy controversy and mole Frances Haugen statements that have swept Facebook. Meta is the Americanization of the Greek preposition “half” which means “in the middle”, “between”, “after” and stands in front of intriguing words like metamorphosis and fatal ones like metastasis. Zuckerberg certainly knew this, as it is true that at the university he recited the lines of the Iliad by heart. Other things we’re not so sure he knew.
Meta is already a company
Here is the first: Meta is already a registered trademark. It belongs to Meta PCs, an Arizona SME that sells computers and various technological gadgets for gaming enthusiasts, a people not too different from those who frequent Zuck’s platforms. Isn’t it that Menlo Park will have copied? The evil ones say it but, however you put it, the number one way to get around the obstacle is to “reconcile”, giving the owners of the brand a nice check for 20 million dollars. If it seems so much for a pc shop, know that everything is relative: the founder of Facebook, one who has many friends but also as many enemies, spends the same amount in a year for his personal safety. Way number two is to get the group’s lawyers to work on the file to find some quirks. But the second option may not necessarily cost less than the first.
Meta is a city
Second thing that perhaps Zuckerberg ignores: Meta is a city. A small town, to be precise: a delightful little place that opens the doors of the Sorrento Peninsula to tourists from Vico Equense and has given Italy refined intellectuals such as rapper Anastasio. In those parts it seems that Menlo Park’s decision was greeted with that mixture of pride and weekend complacency that well represents the spirit of the place. The memes of the group «Sei di Meta se …» are authentic. their duties. Perfect «metaphor» for the work that Facebook does.
Meta is “dead” (in Hebrew)
Third thing that perhaps Zuckerberg did not know: in Hebrew the word meta is a feminine adjective that means “dead”. It is not by chance that the hashtag #FacebookDead went viral in Israel immediately after the announcement of the name change. And this is where the conspiracy theory immediately appears: it is a subliminal message! How to say: Facebook is dead, cheers Facebook. To be honest, we’re not really sure Zuckerberg didn’t know. But we’re sure that, with a little bit of effort, it could have been more original. Or maybe not: after all, he is the genius, not us.