It’s safe to say Monday morning was the biggest change in Twitter’s 17-year history. Elon Musk on Sunday announced that
As promised, so he did. From Monday, Twitter is no longer called Twitter, but X,
The Internet laughs at Elon Musk’s decision. How do you even pronounce X?
The billionaire’s decision quickly became the object of jokes from Twitter users. Some people call the idea of rebranding the website absurd, others joke about the strange name, and still others wonder what repercussions the decision will entail.
Some rightly point out that the name is strongly associated with the domain names of many adult sites, which is unlikely to bring fans to the new Twitter. Others give examples of products that already bear very similar names. One of them is the popular series of X-COM games (the last game came out in 2016).
Twitter just turned into X photo screenshot from Twitter
He also took advantage of the name change well-known Polish online store X-komwho posted a joking “statement” about X-kom’s lack of affiliation with X.com:
– We have been receiving messages, e-mails, phone calls and letters for 24 hours in which you ask us if and what we have in common with the X.com domain. (…) In short – we do not have – we hear on the video published by X-kom. So the whole situation was creatively turned into a joke.
As noted by Flightradar24, there are many companies that also use the letter “X” in their names or logos – for example, FedEx:
Some Internet users also wonder how to pronounce the name of Elon Musk’s social network – “X” (“iks” or “eks”) or maybe “X.com”? How to change the word “tweet” to match the new name and how to inflect X in languages other than English. The billionaire himself gave us no clue, only explaining that Twitter is now X.
The confusion was exploited by the administrators of the Twitter account Analizy Pekao. “Our dream came true. We got up in the morning, started the computers and it turned out that from today we will communicate with the world using Excel,” they wrote in a tweet.
Twitter without the “blue” bird is like Elon Musk without the “black X”
It is worth explaining here that Twitter has always been associated with a characteristic logotype depicting a blue bird, which was baptized by the founders of the service with the name Larry the Bird (in honor of the famous basketball player Larry Bird). And although the company has changed its logo many times, the bird Larry has always remained a part of it.
In addition, the word “Twitter” is also associated with the entire nomenclature used by website users. Twitter posts are tweets, and the act of posting them is “tweeting” (in English, “tweet” is simply “tweeting”). Users of the platform are colloquially referred to as “twitterers”. X-men?” one of them wonders.
On the other hand, Elon Musk has a great fondness for the letter “X”, which he has never hidden. Originally, the name X.com was used by Musk to name an online bank he founded with three other people. It was not his first business, but it was from him that the dynamic career of the current billionaire began.
X.com merged with Confinity in 2000, but due to disagreements with the other owners, Musk left the company (making a fortune) and it changed its name to PayPal. The rights to X.com remained in the hands of PayPal for many years, but in 2017 the billionaire bought them back, because – as he explained – the name has a lot of sentimental value for him.
Elon Musk recalled his attachment to the letter “X” on Sunday. “I’m not sure what subtle clues it indicated, but I like the letter X,” he tweeted. It is also worth noting that the capital letter “X” can also be found in the name of one of his other businesses – SpaceX, as well as in the name of one Tesla car model – Model X. The capital “X” is also placed on the characteristic landing platforms for Falcon 9 rockets.
Elon Musk announced the construction of his empire X
You might have expected Twitter’s rebranding to be just a matter of time. In mid-April, Elon Musk shut down Twitter Inc., which formally owned the social networking site, and handed over the platform to X Corp, founded in March. This, in turn, belongs to X Holdings Corp., which Musk owns.
The eccentric rich man also announced at the beginning of the year that he intends to create an innovative mobile application called “X, the everything app” (X, the app for everything). The whole thing is to operate under the brand name X.
Source: Gazeta
Mabel is a talented author and journalist with a passion for all things technology. As an experienced writer for the 247 News Agency, she has established a reputation for her in-depth reporting and expert analysis on the latest developments in the tech industry.
