No, it’s not yet another dreadfully bad production of the rancid musical “Bye, Bye Birdie”. Elon Musk announced in the middle of the night (genius time), that he is killing off the blue bird, the symbol of Twitter, exclusively since 2012. Musk favors the letter “X”, but of course, he does.

All in all it’s pretty funny that Elon is 52 years old and still thinks the letter X is so cool that everything around him should be named it

— Barbie PTSD survivor (@AbrasiveGhost) July 23, 2023

Personally, I love X also. X can mark the spot for treasure or mean nothing here. X can be nothing or an unknown thing. It can mean death or poison. X can stand for Christ or the Cross. X can also stand for experimental. X is far cooler than N.

Elon has a relationship with the letter X and named one of his most recent sons “X AE A-XII Musk”. His most recent daughter is named “Exa Dark Sideræl Musk” and called “Y” which is completely mid. Meh.

Enough of that. Let’s get to it. Elon Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter. It’s his to do with as he pleases. But, the Blue Bird as marketing, as a logo, as a brand is like Kleenex, Band-aid, Xerox or Frisbee. Isn’t Elon afraid of losing that generic brand. In fact, Twitter is only 17 years old, ancient in the social media world, and its first logo was TWTTR. Larry T. Bird is only about a decade old.

Elon Musk is mercurial. Although he tweeted the change at 12:06 a.m. EDT, it’s probably been in the works for a while. Makes sense, since he folded Twitter into his X Corp. at least three months ago, according to Forbes:

Twitter’s corporate rebranding while retaining the name of its flagship service is similar to Google’s transition to Alphabet in 2015 and Facebook’s switch to Meta in 2021. Musk first agreed to buy Twitter last April before trying to back out from the deal, setting forth a messy legal saga that ultimately resulted in Musk agreeing to follow through on the original $44 billion terms of the acquisition in October. Among Musk’s many ambitions for Twitter are to transform it into an “X” super app akin to China’s WeChat, offering services including mobile payments and social media under one umbrella. Expanding Twitter beyond its social media roots could tie into Musk’s push to boost the company’s revenue, after Twitter faced a sharp decrease in ad revenue shortly after Musk’s takeover.

And, now he pulls it all together:

Every change that Musk makes to Twitter causes different groups of people to lose their freaking minds. EVERY CHANGE. Remember the great celebrity blue check freakout of April 22. There were threats to leave Twitter. There were many butts that were hurt. Celebrities feel the butthurt acutely.

The change to X will include the same butthurt but will add gnashing of teeth. Red State adds context:

Twitter owner Elon Musk announced early Sunday morning that the platform will replace its current bird logo with an “X” logo.
This comes after Musk changed the name of Twitter Inc. to X Corp. earlier this year.
In a tweet posted shortly after midnight, Musk said the social media giant will soon move on from the Twitter brand, including “all the birds.”
“And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,” he wrote.

Bye, bye birdies.

pic.twitter.com/IwcbqMnQtA

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 23, 2023

And, so it begins. Type X.com into your browser and it takes you to Twitter.com. And, interestingly, Musk is “allegedly” crowd-sourcing the new logo. X is one hint and the other is that if anything the X logo should come close to stylized Art Deco, which was highly stylized:

Featuring bold colors, strong geometry, luxurious textures and even more luxurious materials, Art Deco is a century-old aesthetic that couldn’t feel fresher today. Channel that Roaring Twenties glamour with contemporary takes on the trendy again style.

New CEO Linda Yaccarino has tweeted this afternoon:

There’s absolutely no limit to this transformation. X will be the platform that can deliver, well….everything.
@elonmusk
and I are looking forward to working with our teams and every single one of our partners to bring X to the world.

For years, fans and critics alike have pushed Twitter to dream bigger, to innovate faster, and to fulfill our great potential. X will do that and more. We’ve already started to see X take shape over the past 8 months through our rapid feature launches, but we’re just getting started.

X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine.

Twitter is supposed to launch as X sometime later today. I will update you. But, I like anything that gigs Mark Zuckerberg. Remember that his Threads were hot for about three days before user engagement starter to crash. I will leave you for now with this:

Zuck after hearing the X news pic.twitter.com/GB2xhdMWV7

— Virility (@financemose) July 23, 2023

Featured Image: Virginia State Parks/flickr.com/cropped/Creative Commons