Mom of girl named Alexa writes letter to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos about daughter being bullied over name

Mother of six-year-old girl called Alexa writes to Jeff Bezos to beg him not to give tech female names as she reveals school bullies have been ordering her daughter around because she shares same name as Amazon device

  • A Massachusetts mom has written to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to tell him about the merciless teasing her daughter, Alexa, regularly faces 
  • She said that other kids have been ordering her daughter around as if she was the Amazon virtual assistant personified  
  • The six-year-old human Alexa is said to be constantly upset by this teasing
  • The mom believes companies should stop using female names for their products to prevent other women from facing similar mockery
  • Alexa is actually named after the library of Alexandria – the greatest library in the ancient world 

A six-year-old girl named Alexa is being mercilessly teased by her classmates just because she shares a name with Amazon’s ubiquitous virtual assistant, according to the girl’s mom. 

Alexa’s mother Lauren told NBC New York that she’s personally seen her daughter being bullied at her Lynn, Massachusetts school and by members of the public. 

She said she’s overheard them laughing, mocking and shouting commands at her daughter, as though she was the Amazon assistant.  

The bullying took such a toll that Lauren wrote a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to beg him not to give tech female names in the future.

A Massachusetts mom has revealed that her six-year-old daughter is being bullied by and mocked because she shares the same name as Amazon’s virtual assistant, Alexa

‘Kids are telling her, “Turn on my T.V., tell me today’s weather…,’ Lauren wrote in the letter which she recently sent to Bezos, according to NBC New York. ‘They laugh at her and treat her like a servant, and this has been an ongoing issue, everywhere we go.’

Lauren, who addressed Bezos ‘as a father and human being rather than the CEO of Amazon,’ also wrote that people often jokingly ask if the child Alexa ‘Can do the same things the Alexa device does.’ 

Alexa the human is apparently constantly upset by all the jokes and bullying which has been ongoing for the past year, according to Lauren.

Not knowing how to help her daughter, Lauren decided to write to Bezos about the situation. 

‘We are not asking for wealth or recognition from this request. We just want to correct an error we believe was a giant mistake,’ the well-meaning mom wrote in the letter.  

The mom wrote to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos (in September), revealing her daughter's pain and asking that he helps start a movement the puts an end to naming things with women's names

The mom wrote to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos (in September), revealing her daughter’s pain and asking that he helps start a movement the puts an end to naming things with women’s names

While admitting that she knows that people ‘mean no harm’ when teasing her daughter, Lauren told NBC New York that ‘Alexa is a person, not a machine, and people have to stop referring to her like she is one.’

The solution to this teasing tomfoolery, she said, would be for companies to stop giving their products female names. 

Lauren said that besides her daughter, she knows of a seven-year-old also named Alexa who faces the same sort of naming teasing.

‘You’ve already ruined the name, but you don’t have to continue to hurt these girls and women. I ask, make an apology and start a movement. I am,’ Lauren wrote in her Bezos letter. 

Although Lauren, who has now sent the letter to Bezos’ attention twice, has yet to hear from the Amazon CEO, she said that she did receive an apology from Amazon’s tech support, who said that she had forwarded Lauren’s concerns to Amazon’s ‘internal teams’ and thanking her for ‘making sure we’re aware of your experience.’ 

Amazon named its virtual assistant, which operates with the Echo and Dot devices, Alexa in honor of the ancient library of Alexandria.  

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk