SOCIAL

Twitter Rebrands as X

Published

1 year ago

July 24, 2023

Twitter has officially changed its name to X, joining SpaceX in the “X”-based branding scheme Elon Musk appears fond of (he wanted PayPal to be X branded back in the day, too). The blue bird is gone, and tweets are now x’s, according to Musk.

“And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,” Musk said late Saturday night, followed up by a Monday post showing the site’s new X logo projected onto Twitter (now X) headquarters.

“Everyone should be proud of the pace of innovation over the last nine months — from long-form content, to creator monetization, and tremendous advancements in brand safety protections,” said X CEO Linda Yaccarino in an internal note seen by TheWrap. “Our usage is at an all time high and we’ll continue to delight our entire community with new experiences in audio, video, messaging, payments, banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities.”

She went on to say X employees were writing history and that she and Musk would be working to bring X to the world.

Users have expressed a range of emotions in reaction to the change, with one popular sentiment being confusion over why Twitter would rebrand to something that turns “Twitter videos” into “X videos,” otherwise known as XVideos, the popular porn site. As a result, #XVideos is trending and a lot of the “celebratory” Twitter-is-now-X posts are not safe for work (and will not be embedded here). Even in Musk’s own posting threads, people are making the connection.

To note: The letter X’s association with porn is nothing new, nor is Musk’s disregard for the letter’s link to adult films. As stated by author Max Chafkin, Musk has historically ignored the results of focus tests indicating that the “X” name reminds people of porn.

Another user compared Elon Musk’s rebranding aesthetic to an imitation of the X logo used for LexCorp, the corporation run by DC comics antagonist Lex Luthor. “Blud thinks he’s lex luthor,” the user said, capping off his joke with a skull emoji.

“It’s interesting that even though you had this idea for a very long time, you never made a good logo for it,” another user said of Musk’s logo display.

Some people were content to leave their personal opinions out and simply meme on the inherent risks associated with a bold rebrand.

Others posted memes hinting at the idea that perhaps this rebrand would steal back the limelight from Threads, the Meta-backed, X-like app that recently enjoyed an explosive launch with tens of millions of signups within its first days of availability.

Other users jabbed X for not properly rebranding everything upon launching the change, leaving items such as the “tweet” button intact despite the rest of the site transitioning to the new X theme.

Some users politely voiced their preference for the bird logo and asked that Musk reverse course.

For her part, X’s CEO publicly expressed enthusiasm over the rebranding, saying it was another chance for the site to make a “big impression.”

“Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine,” Yaccarino said in a series of x’s, saying X will be the platform that can deliver “everything.”

Source link