The Society for Preventing Parents from Naming Their Children Jennifer (SPPNTCJ) was a popular and sometimes controversial
website
A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...
that contributed to early
web culture, online from 1996 to 2000. The SPPNTCJ
home page
A home page (or homepage) is the main web page of a website. Usually, the home page is located at the Root directory, root of the website's Domain name, domain or subdomain. For example, if the domain is example.com, the home page is likely l ...
was created and updated by Jennifer Farwell, one of the three founding members of the SPPNTCJ. Other founding members were Jennifer Rich and Jennifer Ang.
Background
The SPPNTCJ began as an
inside joke
An in-joke, also known as an inside joke or a private joke, is a joke with humour that is understandable only to members of an ingroup; that is, people who are ''in'' a particular social group, occupation, or other community of shared interest. I ...
on an email discussion list that both Farwell and Rich subscribed to, which included five or more
Jennifers who actively posted at that time. One of the Jennifers tossed out the comment that there should be "a society for preventing parents from naming their children Jennifer." The idea took off, and Farwell created the SPPNTCJ's website. It welcomed more than 2 million visitors while online.
During its run, the SPPNTCJ was noted by the ''
Richmond Times-Dispatch
The ''Richmond Times-Dispatch'' (''RTD'' or ''TD'' for short) is the primary daily newspaper in Richmond, Virginia, and the primary newspaper of record for the state of Virginia.
Circulation
The ''Times-Dispatch'' has the second-highest circul ...
'', ''
Yahoo! Internet Life
''Yahoo! Internet Life'' was a monthly magazine published by Ziff Davis, which licensed the name from Yahoo!, the well-known web portal and Web search engine, search engine website. It was created and launched by G. Barry Golson, the former exec ...
'' magazine, ''Thunder Bay Television News'',
580 CKPR radio program ''Tech Talk'',
California State University, Chico
California State University, Chico (Chico State) is a public university in Chico, California. It was founded in 1887 as one of about 180 "normal schools" founded by state governments in the 19th century to train teachers for the rapidly growing ...
,
SignsOnSanDiego.com,
WebMD
WebMD is an American corporation which publishes online news and information about human health and well-being. The WebMD website also includes information about drugs and is an important healthcare information website and the most popular cons ...
and more. It received several Internet "cool site" acknowledgments, from Cool Central, Seven Wonders, Twoeys, Fallen Thinkers, and Secret Einstein.
[Secret Einstein award, 6 February 1998]
References
Further reading
* "Could this Happen Again?
''Cat Bytes'' California State University, Chico, Spring 2000, retrieved 3 September 2017.
* Dawson, Bill
SignOnSanDiego.com by the Union-Tribune, 3 October 2002.
* Kyber, Paul. "Jennifers unite to save others from their fate". ''Richmond Times-Dispatch'', 7 November 1996, D8.
* Smith, Michael. (Reviewer)
"What's in a Child's Name? A Lot"{dead link, date=May 2018 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes . ''WebMD'' feature, retrieved 21 January 2008.
External links
Baby Name Resources
Naming organizations
Defunct websites
category:Internet memes
Internet properties established in 1996