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Musk X’s Out Twitter Branding Ending Iconic Era

Wednesday, July 26, 2023Wednesday, July 26, 2023By Macie Jones
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Musk X’s Out Twitter Branding Ending Iconic Era

You have to admit. It’s been Mr. Musk’s Wild and Crazy Ride this past year for Twitter. Since being dragged into court to purchase a social media network he was about to walk out on, Musk has sought to remake the social network in his own image.

He’s gutted staff across the board, made fun of employees, refused to pay others, and crafted policies that run contrary to ad-based services.

Musk’s latest move tests good marketing practices in a bid to rebrand Twitter as ‘X’.

Why X?

It seems only tried and true fans and former-Musk fans had a hint of why he chose the silliest moniker for a site that needs brand trust for business.

Our very own former-Musk fanboy; Publisher, Will Mapp, knew why.

Long ago, PayPal’s developer network linked to x.com URLs. Many of the APIs were called at PayPal.x.com. Musk was one of PayPal’s creators and it looks like he’s always wanted to make something of x.com.

William Lee Mapp, III, Publisher

Netizens React

The Internet reacted just as you’d expect. They took to Twitter to ridicule the change.

X is typically the starting letter for many a porn site and it seems X-Twitter is joining the ranks of xhamster, xnxx, and xvideos.

About that xvideos moniker. Twitter suspended an account with the porn site’s handle because…

This wasn’t thee, xvideos.com site’s account, but Twitter proactively suspended this account because they are now calling videos posted to the platform Xvideos.

For their part, and probably not so tongue in cheek the real xvideoscom account announced new login support for X-Twitter users on their platform.

Mad Genius or Plain Mad

Musk had public feuds with Twitter for years before taking over. He was constantly at odds with Twitter’s content moderators for not allowing the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories or for simply moderating hate speech.

It seems like he’s taking his frustrations out on the platform and conspiracy theorists think he’s running the service in the ground to write off a loss.

He’s run off celebrities after inviting trolls and incels to join the site’s Blue Check ranks. He’s run off advertisers after letting hate speech and anything goes rhetoric run unchecked. And, he’s run off power users for myriad technical glitches and read limits.

True believers and ex-Musk fans cite the successes and rise of Tesla and SpaceX of his business acumen. But, nay, I say. Musk simply bought into those enterprises and if you talk to the people doing the work was more chaos agent than a disrupter who brings positive change.

He’s more like a Miles Bron throwing any old thing against the wall to see if it sticks and blowing up his empire, than a Howard Hughes. (I’ll twist the knife in my boss’ side)

He’s the tech bro who has too much money and realizes he can’t buy real ‘likes’, friends, or women with his billions and subverts to relying on locker room taunts to fight other tech bros for attention.

I’ve already said social media is no longer social. We’ve relied on technology built by men and led by men who were (are?) social derelicts. Facebook and Twitter have devolved from fun places to hang out to cesspools of toxic posts, hyper-sexed DMs, and political vitriol. Mastadon is no better, and Instagram has its own image esteem issues.

As the world opens back up, and people see Musk’s latest moves for what they really are, maybe we’re heading towards a new era of how we make connections and behave online. The average social media user is logging in on sheer habit now. Maybe someone out there is thinking of ways to bring more community into digital spaces while preserving the idea of a town square. (Starting to hate that phraseology)

We know it’s not Elon Musk.

If he’s not designing Cyberpunk trucks for a dystopian wasteland, he’s turning the Net’s town square into a digital dystopia.

-MJ