ReeEEEEEH!!
I can not in good conscience bring myself to call Facebook™’s parent company ‘Meta’ (meaning one thing that encompasses everything else pertaining to the suffix, eg. meta-physical, meta-analysis. Or in this case just just ‘meta’ encompassing everything)…
or to call Twitter™ ‘X’ (Literally trying to shove their brand into a letter of the alphabet, and taking the coolest one too, eg. X-treme!, xXusernameXx)…
or to call Google™ ‘Alphabet’ (One of the first things children come to learn about)…
or to call Apple™… ‘Apple’ (alright kids lets say the Alphabet™, A is for Apple™, ) …
or TikTok™ (tick tock goes the clock)…
or BlueSky™ , etc.
This parasitic pattern is annoying, because it constantly pings you with irrelevant thoughts of these fricking companies (even subconsciously), yet it never seems nearly a big enough deal to point out.
But without people being conscious of this; it will just keep growing and growing to hijack whatever common language/symbol it can; starting with the most short/simple + popular/favoured things.
The long-term problem is ultimately: ‘thought degradation’; by the growing of unconscious distractions, and also hacking the business of impressionable children, based on name instead of relevance.
I love people using their own name in their business, or atleast fake words/combinations like ‘Pissify’, ‘Pooply’ or ‘Proton Mail’.
PS. If you’re telling someone to search for something on the internet, you’d say something like “search it” …or would you advertise a big pissy company?
Exusia@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Playing competitive games for 15+ years has ruined “meta” for me. “Did you see the new meta glasses?” Does not mean they give good stats. Rather, the bulky frame, need to charge next to my phone, and red-flags for need to record your whole life and are decidedly off-meta.