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Groan

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Groan

Sometimes a news event causes me physical pain:

“To reflect who we are and what we hope to build,” he added. He said the name Facebook doesn’t fully encompass everything the company does now, and is still closely linked to one product. “But over time, I hope we are seen as a metaverse company.”

These guys are so fucking stoned on their own bullshit they have no idea what is going on outside of the own little, well, metaverse.

Also, why do he and Elizabeth Holmes have Heaven’s Gate eyes?

Also completely unrelated is there any reason I should not put peas in the batch of Mulligatawny I am making?

Reader Interactions

77Comments

  1. 1.

    Poe Larity

    I’m just so excited to be alive and see this moment. Like the Moon landing or my first google.

    You won’t need pets anymore with Rat Things.

  5. 5.

    Ken

    I see no reason not to put peas in mulligatawny.

    There, I said it, and I’m not backing down.

    EDIT: I see two people have already disagreed, so I’m backing down.

  7. 7.

    Nicole

    The reason you should not put peas in the Mulligatawny you are making is that there is no reason to ruin a perfectly good Mulligatawny with peas, which are the small, edible legumes of the Devil.

  10. 10.

    Scamp Dog

    Still not impressed with the new name. I owe a tiny bit of credit to FB because my now girlfriend made contact with me there after meeting me at a wedding, but I’m not seeing anything else too positive about it.

  11. 11.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Scamp Dog: 

    Pro: Easy to keep in touch with relatives, see kid pictures of friends, and to see what your old high school relatives are doing.

    Con:Watch grandpa get radicalized by anti-vaxx and pro-Trump lies, see too many pictures of your relatives’ kids, and realize that a good 50% of your high school set has gone bug-fucking nuts.

  12. 12.

    Frankensteinbeck

    With the Metaverse, the idiot Amazon ‘watches you at all times’ robot, and the cybertruck, I have realized something.  The Tech CEOs are so detached from reality that they have come to believe that they only need to make something that looks like science fiction and we’ll be living in their favorite movies.  Yes, guys, we got Star Trek communicators with cell phones.  The thing is, the cell phones had to work.  They had to actually do basically the same job.  Your robot pet that does not do anything pets do is not going to change the world.  You cannot get even a big portion of the population to agree on a virtual landscape they like, and they sure as Hell won’t replace clicking on their favorites bar to go walk through a crowd of strangers to a website they like.

    EDIT – Cargo cult.  It’s cargo cult technology.

  16. 16.

    MattF

    It’s quite possible that Facebook is doomed. It’s hard to see how a not-doomed company would do anything this stupid.

  18. 18.

    MomSense

    I don’t think the youngs do metabookfaces much at all anymore. Is it all just Xers and Boomers?

  21. 21.

    WaterGirl

    They thing we are so fucking stupid.  It didn’t work with Blackwater and it won’t work with this.

    Please tell me that the Facebook leaking has gone past the point of no return.

  22. 22.

    Poe Larity

    What will everyones avatar be when they join the Meta BJ Metaverse?

    Speaking of things that should be sins against god and nature, the Cowboy Bebop trailer is actually giving me paws to reconsider.

  23. 23.

    MomSense

    @Poe Larity:

    Not sure how I feel about this.  The anime was so good in the original.  I hope they keep the music at least.  The music was phenomenal.

    Wheel of Time is going to air in November as well.  I think it is going to be on prime.

  24. 24.

    SpaceUnit

    In that picture Zuckerberg looks like a wiener / human hybrid that just forced its way into your house to sell you a timeshare.

    I imagine children screaming in the background.

  25. 25.

    Ksmiami

    @MattF: at the end of the day, they’re a not very ethical and easily replaced online marketplace that sells data. They don’t actually build anything real unlike Tesla or even Amazon that delivers goods. Good riddance

  27. 27.

    waspuppet

    He said the name Facebook doesn’t fully encompass everything the company does now, and is still closely linked to one product.

    Yeah — ranking college girls like a bunch of creeps.

  29. 29.

    lashonharangue

    I recommend watching this interview with Brittan Heller.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6MYtxn2w38  

    What FB hopes to do with virtual reality is way beyond what was promised by Cambridge Analytics.  Capturing data on people’s physiological responses will help with targeting/refining advertising as well as engagement.

  31. 31.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    That looks like an actual human (more or less) smile in that photo up top. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a facial expression on Zuckerberg’s face, it’s startling.

    Is it maybe like claymation, where they have a bunch of different heads with different expressions on them and they pop on the one they need for each shot?

  32. 32.

    FelonyGovt

    This is so ridiculous it should be a parody. I don’t see how they overcome the snickering about this.

  33. 33.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Poe Larity: 

    What will everyones avatar be when they join the Meta BJ Metaverse?​

    Me but with my hair and beard properly groomed, skills I have never seemed to master in real life.

  34. 34.

    Kathleen

    @Winston: Meta makes the crap so that Metamucil can help you take a crap. Or give a crap if you’re feeling generous. Am I making a meta now?

  40. 40.

    Bill Arnold

    FB’s new name is irritating. I regularly use the word meta, both as a standalone word and a prefix. (And have even been referred to with a noun phrase which includes “meta”.) Appropriation of a short useful word for commercial gain is disgusting, and I’m surprised it was allowed (presumably in all English-speaking countries).
    Power to those who wish the destruction of Zuckerberg’s company!

  41. 41.

    Nina

    I still maintain it should be Washington Football Team – I mean, that worked for the last organization that wanted to claim that they weren’t racist nazis….

  44. 44.

    Winston

    So I’m 74 years old and my grand daughter says: What do you do all day grandpa? And I reply I’m a metachemical engineer, I turn beer, wine and vodka into urine.

  50. 50.

    different-church-lady

    @Frankensteinbeck: I’ve been saying for a few years now: it’s like they discovered a cache of dystopian sci-fi novels from the 50s and said, “Hey, let’s do that!”

  51. 51.

    different-church-lady

    Also, why do he and Elizabeth Holmes have Heaven’s Gate eyes?

    That’s just how sociopaths are.

  52. 52.

    Papa Boyle

    Reporter:  “Could you use Meta in a sentence”

    Facebook Exec:   “I never met a nazi I didn’t like”

  55. 55.

    Tim C

    Please forgive me for bringing this up, but isn’t this basically Second Life all over again? I mean, that sounds exactly like this, some buzz about VR and the Metaverse and then it will descend into smut of various kinds and extremist idiocy. Note, consensual smut between adults is nobody’s buisiness between the adults involved but…. *waves at the internet* I think that’s pretty much covered.

  56. 56.

    different-church-lady

    @Tim C:

    I think that’s pretty much covered.

    Zuck does not want to share any part of the internet whatsoever with anyone else.

  59. 59.

    PenAndKey

    Serious question: how on earth can they possibly get a trademark on meta or metaverse? Those are not only generic sci-fi names, they’re not even the first company to use that exact phrase to describe their virtual environment. How can you trademark a common generic phrase, with the same meaning as the phrase has always had, and that’s been in use for decades?

  62. 62.

    laura

    Just a quick reminder that faceberg rode a surf rocket while holding the American flag and John Denver’s Take Me Home, Country Roads played in the background on the 4th of July. Just a weird self-involved fart-huffing freak of not quite human attempt at some kind of spectacle that was meant to convey just what a regular guy faceberg would have you believe that he is. He ain’t. He’s a monster and now he’s coming for your young profit centers.

  64. 64.

    Nicole

    @WaterGirl: Seriously!  Why would anyone ruin a Mulligatawny (one of my favorite foods) with those horrible little green pellets of nasty?

    (#notallpeas, I do like snap peas and snow peas)

  69. 69.

    Sloegin

    You know what would be really meta?  Getting charged with crimes against humanity for being a leading cause of Covid deaths and profiting from it.

  74. 74.

    Tasha

    Put peas in the stew 15 minutes before you’re ready to eat it. Don’t let them cook to mush.

  75. 75.

    Nancy

    @Poe Larity: 
    A Neal Stephenson reader! I salute you. I read and re-read so many of his books.
    Just last night, I saw statement from Stephenson that he has nothing to do with facebook and their metaverse.

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