Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants his employees to call each other “Metamates” — and the new moniker is sparking widespread mockery, both inside and outside the company.
“Metamates” will replace “Facebookers” after the Silicon Valley-based owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp rebranded itself as Meta last fall, highlighting its emphasis on building a metaverse.
“Now is the right time to update our values and our cultural operating system,” Zuckerberg wrote on his Facebook page after announcing the change during a company-wide staff meeting Tuesday.
But Twitter commenters said the new nickname sounds like a dating app from the metaverse. Others quipped that it sounded too much like grade school.
“Metamates report to the Metatorium for a Metameeting,” one Twitter user wrote.
One Twitter user joked that they were eating “lunchables with my metamates.”
“Metamates? More like metastases,” quipped another user on social media.
“Sounds like a brand name for a condom,” another Twitter user wrote. (Indeed, Mates happens to be a popular condom brand that’s sold in the United Kingdom.)
![Zuckerberg](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/Mark-Zuckerberg_18-1.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1024)
Andrew Bosworth, chief technological officer at Meta’s Facebook division, tweeted that “Metamates” was a “reference to a Naval phrase which Instagram has used for a while.”
One employee on an internal company chat cited by the New York Times wrote: “Does this mean we are on a sinking ship?”
Unveiling the new moniker at an all-hands meeting Tuesday from Meta’s Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters, Zuckerberg insisted, “Meta, Metamates, Me is about being good stewards of our company and mission.”
![Meta](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/meta_19.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1024)
“It’s about the sense of responsibility we have for our collective success and to each other as teammates. It’s about taking care of our company and each other.”
Zuckerberg’s pivot from a social media-centered company to one that is focused on the metaverse has not come without hiccups.
The company lost $200 billion off its valuation earlier this month when it revealed that it lost users to upstart rival TikTok.
![Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees on Tuesday that they are to be referred to as "Metamates."](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/Mark-Zuckerberg_17-1.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1024)
Facebook Reality Labs, the arm of the company that is leading the charge into the metaverse, lost $3.3 billion in the quarter despite generating $877 million in revenue.
The loss is just a drop in the bucket compared to the $33.67 billion that the company brought in last quarter from its targeted advertising on its social network.
Shares of Meta Platforms were down by just over 2% in early morning trading on Wall Street on Wednesday.