Hussein is my middle name

It seems more and more people have been changing their names on their Facebook profiles. It's not for the reasons you think. They're not on the lam, nor have they gone goth and have taken on
the moniker of DarkAngel33. It's a form of political protest.

Suddenly my friend list is populated with people who have the middle name of Hussein. Coincidentally, the middle name of their favored presidential candidate, Barack Obama, happens to be Hussein. It also is a middle name that is used to portray the candidate as different than us, an arab, a muslim, a terrorist. None of those things are, of course, true and so by adopting the name of Hussein my friends are showing that they are the same as their candidate. We are all Husseins!

The practice of changing one's middle name to Hussein seems to go back to last fall, according to this New York Times article, but the real moment of activation seems to have occurred in February, after a radio pundit, Bill Cunningham, used Obama's middle name numerous times at a campaign rally.

The phenomena has been catching on steam ever since, especially these past two weeks. Checking Twitter conversations on changing one's name to Hussein, it seems as if the meme has reached critical mass. The pace of these conversations has definitely been heating up. The backlash has also begun with some tweets calling for people to stop christening themselves "Hussein." This was likely sparked by the McCain campaign's controversial negative tactics--their labeling Obama as an associate of terrorists--and McCain supporters reactions at rallies, which have been anything but subtle (the phrases such as "kill him" and "terrorist" have even been evoked at rallies).

This just might be the first time that social network profile names were being activated as a political platform. Who would have thunk that were possible? I doubt Zuckerberg.

Note again, people are ingenious. If we build platforms that are flexible, they'll find new ways to use them. The more ways, the more engaged they'll be; the more they'll use the platform. It's a simple construct, and it demands that instead of building fences one should be plowing an open fields where people can play.