Turning our kids into living billboards for the freebies
I have before me an article in which Switzerland’s internet provider, Twifi, has promised to give 18 years of free Wi-Fi to anyone who would willingly name their new daughter Twifia or their new son Twifus. Naturally, the company has found a taker.
The world was bound to come to this. The only surprise to me is that it takes place in Switzerland and not in Florida or California.
According to an article in Uexpress.com, a young lady has received Twifia as her middle name. “The more I thought about it, the more unique the name became to me, and that’s when the thing acquired its charm,” the girl’s father said.
The baby’s mom added, “For me, the name Twifia also stands for connection in this context.”
I imagine that, in about 12 years, the now-baby will say, “I really hate my mom and dad.”
Digging around I found another article on the same couple and little Twif. Moneycontrol.com gave a little more information on the piece, explaining why — except for one middle name — the family in this story is remaining anonymous: “The newspaper Blick quoted baby Twifia’s father as saying: ‘We want to remain anonymous to those around us because we don’t want to justify ourselves for it. Because the accusation of having sold our child’s name hit us hard. We are also a little ashamed.”
It’s a major story. Even Perez Hilton mentioned it on his website (on the father’s original excitement about the whole thing, Hilton noted, “You can make anything sound good if it means two decades of free WiFi!”).
Actually, in today’s world of marketing and the drive to get all kinds of stuff for free, I’m a little surprised this isn’t happening on a wider scale — surprised, in fact, that the father of this
Swiss Miss would be at all embarrassed at what he’d done.
I mean, we’re already running around offering ourselves and our kids as moving billboards by wearing corporate logos on hats and shirts, and even on our cars. I’m even seeing the occasional tattoo promoting a business or at the very least a famous character. And we actually pay for that. Would it really be that big of a step for companies to start paying us to use their names as our names?
Had the companies been out there, promising free product for turning your children into lifelong billboards when I was born — the mid-50s — there would be a lot of kids named after cigarettes out there. Lucky Strike Jones and Winston Robinson wouldn’t be so bad, but I’d hate to be the girl who was named Meredith Camel Hemming.
My father was not a smoker, but he loved his coffee. I’d probably be bylined over this column as Max Hand — and have Maxwell House Hand on my birth certificate. He loved specific brands of cars too, so my sister would be named Mercedes, which I guess could be a lot worse. She would doubtless thank her lucky stars he never fell in love with the Edsel.
When we named our daughter, Roberta and I went to the Bible and came up with Rachel Elizabeth — Rachel, as in Jacob’s beloved and Elizabeth, as in a really old lady who had a baby who wound up as second fiddle on the New Testament scene. We went that route partly because Roberta wouldn’t let me go the “Star Wars” route. It’s probably just as well because “Leia Darth” is not that enchanting of a name and I’m sure she’d be refusing to wear that honeybuns taped over her ears by now.
But back in those halcyon days, no one on Madison Avenue was thinking of lifelong, two-legged billboards. They aren’t even thinking of them today, though after Switzerland it’s only a matter of time.
Of course, it’s pretty tacky and pathetic to name your child after a product just to get free service, and I’m well above that fray. Mostly. I must admit, though, that if a little one was to suddenly, somehow, come our way I would be calling corporate headquarters and see if I couldn’t wind up with a kid named Dunkin.