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Facebook changes name to Meta: The funniest memes and jokes

"But," cracks George Takei, "what's the Meta for?"

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Gael Fashingbauer Cooper
CNET freelancer Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
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Gael Fashingbauer Cooper
2 min read

The social media site known as Facebook will still use that name, but its parent company has a new brand. On Thursday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that his company will be called "Meta" to reflect the company's focus on building a larger virtual world beyond the Facebook platform. The company also owns photo app Instagram, messaging app WhatsApp and more.

With a platform as popular as Facebook, an announcement this big couldn't go unmocked. The jokes flew even before this week's announcement, as we reported. But Zuckerberg's announcement just opened the door for more commentary.

Animaniacs

Immediately after the name was announced, the Twitter account for the reboot of the Animaniacs animated show picked up on it, quoting the line in its theme song that proclaims, "We did meta first."

Really? Meta?

Others imagined how the name choice came about, or simply marveled at the choice.

"Honest to god thought this was satire," wrote one Twitter user. "Honest to god. This is the kind of pseudonym they give tech companies in Hallmark movies because it's so ridiculously fake."

Acronyms and more

"Meta" means "showing or suggesting an explicit awareness of itself or oneself as a member of its category : cleverly self-referential," according to Merriam-Webster. But some people thought it could be an acronym, such as "Mark Evading True Accountability," or "Mark Evading Tax Accountability."

Other name ideas

Some, of course, thought there were better choices out there than Meta.

"Was low-key hoping for book face," wrote one Twitter user.

What's in a name?

And people continued to note that a name change is perhaps not getting at Facebook's real problems.

Wrote one person, "Yeah sure, THIS was the issue with Facebook."

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Watch this: Watch everything Zuckerberg announced at Facebook Connect 2021