If we were to look back at the first decade of the new century, the majority would probably remember it for the crimes committed against humanity in the form of 9/11 and 7/7, the cluster of celebrity deaths including Michael Jackson and Heath Ledger and the propelling of the social network into the mainstream across the globe.
And as we watch the rather slow and painful death of Myspace, despite its last ditch attempts at revamping the site to counter its declining user base, Facebook is firing on all cylinders with over 500 million users in 190 countries, 700 billion minutes spent on there per month and a film about it under its belt at just 7 years old.
Facebook has been responsible for generating business and promotions, providing advocates for support groups including cancer awareness and cyber-bullying pages, reconnecting old friends and families and giving people with something important to say, the platform to do so.
So as we hear about Facebook’s rising popularity causing people to gain a permanent Facebook icon on their skin in the form of a tattoo or people meeting and then marrying after swapping a few personal details on Facebook chat, we look at whether naming a child ‘Facebook’ is really that extraordinary?
Last month, a sane Egyptian man in his early twenties named his firstborn daughter Facebook Jamal Ibrahim without being under the influence and with no pressure from fellow pro-democratic, anti-government and anti-Mubarak protesters who praised Facebook (the site, not the child) for its distribution of logistical information and in raising awareness of the people’s plight in Egypt’s time of political unrest.
But it was because of those reasons that the Egyptian man in the Ibrahimya region decided to honour Facebook by allocating the social network name to his firstborn daughter to express his gratitude for the revolution that was started on Facebook. And you thought you had it bad at school because your last name was Shufflebottom.
As we read about children being named after fruits and vegetables, cities and states and even something which looks like someone has fallen asleep on the keyboard, Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116 (an actual name intended for a child in Sweden), ‘Facebook’ doesn’t seem so controversial anymore. Although as Perez Hilton points out, it would be a nightmare trying to find them on Facebook.
Who knows, in 70 years time we could have a bunch of orange-rinse pensioners called ‘Twitter’ and ‘YouTube’ twittering about how parents are abusing their children by subjecting them to names such as Jacob and Jennifer.
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