'Happy Birthday!' is dead, and it's all Facebook's fault

Facebook's SMS notification allows users to post a birthday wish by replying with '1' - meaning it would be more heartfelt to send 'Wibble!' to your friends

Good news! Birthday wishes are finally meaningless. All the birthday cards you've ever posted, all the tender heartfelt messages sent to loved ones, all the dates seared into your memory through years of joy, are now utterly invalidated, so we should all stop bothering and move on with our lives.

If you're wondering who to thank from freeing us of the burden of caring about arbitrary dates, it's Facebook. Thanks to them, the phrase "Happy Birthday!" is now a hollow shell. Why? This: