Yeehah, the RMR SEO folks just finished their first Twitter rant. And just as we dropped the pen and published the damned thing, good ol’ Elon Musk dropped the next pretty little bomblet on the unsuspecting masses of the elitist Twitterati. And it’s actually too juicy to just ignore. So, let’s have at it again! Or more succinctly put, let’s X it, shall we?
And here it comes. Death to the bird! The insanely popular and well-known blue birdie met its maker in logo heaven. The silence of the lambs without tweets for eternity. In other words, we’ve just witnessed the worst brand transition ever. And don’t even try some worn-out whataboutism on yours truly and mention the infamous Coca Cola rebranding some while back. It won’t sync with this one. Nothing will, I fear.
So, one fine weekend not that long ago, Mr. Musk here renamed the well-established Twitter Brand into X. Boom! Just do it, move fast and break stuff. The age-old asymmetric warfare thing from the Zuckerman that didn’t age all that well. In other words, instead of building on a superbly established brand name with real power, Musk just went ahead and destroyed some true marketing oomph at a moment’s notice. Sometimes I wonder if this guy is just out to annoy everybody out there for the heck of it.
We’re witnessing the Musk man’s lifelong wet dream, an obsession to name everything X like some damn closet porn addict. Well, to say the least, since the early days of Pay Pal, naming everything X has been a fixture in the man’s imagination. SpaceX, Tesla X, X Corp., X Holdings, or X.com. Boy, the man even has a kid named after the letter.1 So many Xes in one place, it makes your head spin. And he does that – well – because he can. He bought himself a company for a whopping 44 billion dollars, saddled the company with a ton of unsustainable debt, and went private. So he can do with it as he damned well pleases. Right?
So, the infamous X magically appeared on the desktop app, but wouldn’t show on mobile in many parts of the world until recently. And at the time of writing this blurb, it still isn’t in session at RMRs current location. Everything, the blue buttons, the invitation to tweet (no kidding…), and the Twitter rules. Only the good ol’ Twitter handle was inactivated and sent to the X graveyard.
So, the X sits magnanimously on its dark throne at the top of the desktop page. That, and the blackened setting are testament of ominous change straight ahead. And, the sign also appeared on top of the old Twitter building, flashing away so brightly at night to give any epileptic an instant seizure. Good that they had to take it down again shortly thereafter. Because – apparently – they forgot safety standards and permits. Move fast and drive straight into a wall, like. Oops! Boy, this feels like Gotham City all over again with the Joker smiling at you from an open window.
But let me get this straight. The new logo is about as dumb, uninspired, and listless as Arch Enemy’s current progress in the metal world. It’s actually nothing more than a Unicode character in black and white2 and being in the public domain, this will be a bitch to trademark. Never mind that Meta – yes, THAT particular lizard again – owns a trademark called X for social media. Or you got established brand names like Xbox and their likes. And these guys got deep pockets. Just sayin’. Move fast and break stuff, until the law comes for you? Quite.
And how did the much-diminished staff over at the – X building get to that logo? Well, as the lore goes, they launched a lottery of sorts. So, this guy who won the prize and became the newest musketeer pretty much slammed the good ol’ ๐ unicode on a tweet and sent it on. A few minutes of trimming the edges, and – drumroll – he got the tickets, some goodies, and a hug. Great deal, buddy, you got it made. The trademark folks over at Twit… – dammit – X are still laughing at their good fortune. Cheap is good, right? Blaze Your Glory, dude. You deserve it.
Wait, what did I just say? Yep, you heard that right. ‘Blaze Your Glory’ is the new tagline on the app. I mean, we’re all metalheads over here and the ’80s were a great source of Heavy Metal. So, that thing could well be the name of the newest Saxon song. And it would all tightly fit into a strangely comfortable chorus line, screamed to the masses by some Dickinson sound-alike.
But really, X, what would that actually mean? Perhaps it’s one of those church things you find on roadside boards. Or – hmm – it literally could be a reference to those Teslas and their annoying habit to burst into flames at any odd moment. Poof, glory’s gone. And don’t even get me started on the glorious thoughts that porn addicts could have with such a tagline that fits so well with the infamous X. I’ll let you spin that one. So, long story short, the RMR folks had a lot of fun with that new slogan. And we still haven’t figured out its deepest meaning. But then, we’re not geniuses over here thinking way ahead to the next civilization on Mars. We’re just not moving fast enough over here.
And that bears one question. What on the good ol’ Mars is the plan? Simply put, the all-seeing eye over at X wants to copy WeChat and create an everything app. Chatting – ahem – communication, buy or sell goods and services, banking transactions, and so on. A go-to app that would cover 50% of the global financial business, as succinctly put by da man himself. So, Pay Pal, Amazon, and the good ol’ Twitter all in one? Kind of, and still no innovation in sight far and wide, it’s all already preexisting.
Maybe X will go for a ‘consolidation app’ of sorts. Because for the life of me, I cannot fathom how they’ll get that done with a company that seems to hemorrhage money like Dracula with blood indigestion. Apart from the fact that their debt is way too high, ad sales are down by 50%, the Blue checkmark option ain’t all that popular, and Musk just fired some 80% of the staff by his own admission. A project like that means proper funding, careful planning, and an army of busy worker bees hacking out code and making things work.
Now, all we heard here still sounds very much like the job a CEO would do. Yet here we got Musk blazing ahead and Linda Yaccarino – the new chieftain over at X Corp – somewhat following in the financier-in-chief’s mighty wake. I’ve known a few of them in my time, and all of them suffered from quite an ego. And they usually don’t like to play the second fiddle. But yeah, you always need the fall gal in case something will go wrong. Like some botched brand change. Move fast and blame it on the other one? Convenient, that.
Ultimately, this Twitter to X transition has been a trainwreck in slow motion. I sincerely hope this will work out for them once they’re done blazing about and breaking everything. But I just cannot fathom using any everything app administered by an abusive state, the Joker, or a friggin’ lizard. All of that sounds like a bunch of rather dystopian options that may lead to a world darker than even Orwell was able to imagine.
The Odd Footnote!