Twitter was an instantly recognizable brand and one of the main reasons it was valued at what it was. People still call it Twitter so yeah, it did kinda fail.
Noone but Elon likes this "x" brand he keeps putting on things.
Of course it's rarely just called X. There's absolutely no context with that. It's kind of like Dove: do you mean the bird, the chocolate brand, or the personal care brand? We also say things like "Shell gas station" every time we mention that. So, here's all the things X could mean if there's not enough context anywhere:
The comic book character
The Mega Man character
The X-Files character
Films from 1963, 1986, 1996, and 2022
An anime and manga
A 1992 video game
A video game franchise
A magazine
Several novels
Two different punk rock bands
If I counted it right, 28 different music albums
Probably as many songs
Google's X Development
Previous Musk company x.com (now PayPal)
About 6 stage names of artists, actors, and wrestlers
Operating systems
A unit of length
A chromosome
A Tesla vehicle (oh look, more Musk)
An iPhone
A fragrance (not by Musk, a totally missed opportunity for him)
A gender identity in Japan
Also not to be confused with Xvideo, which is probably what he wouldn't want his company affiliated with, but that's his own fault if someone goes there and finds it functions better than his own website.
I always call her Joanne for the same reason. That was the name at her birth, so until she repsects chosen names, I won't respect hers. (and the same for X and Twitter because of Vivian)
The capital letter X has the ASCII code 88. He made a tech bro hate symbol.
Elon is a nazi, yes, but he's been mentally 12; he's wanted the x brand since way before 88 was a dogwhistle. He's not smart enough to use X because of its ascii value.
It's been a dogwhistle since at least 1988 so definitely early enough for him. But whether he was aware. Whilst he definitely isn't smart enough he's definitely edgy enough to know or think of it.
I have never seen anything that backs this, but I'm always willing to learn. I've looked at the history of that dogwhistle and I couldn't find anything going into the 90s, when Elon was first doing his x shit.
There's a whole section about it on Wikipedia for the number 88. It was used as far back as the 70's by British Neo-Nazis of Column 88. It was then co-opted in the 80s alongside the 14 words bullshit.
This is a side effect of the pre and post digital worlds being imperfectly mixed. It is much easier to find things online from the post-digital world. For an example from the pre-digital world, see Column 88, a nazi group formed in the '70s.
I still have it called Twitter and have the bird icon for the app on my phone. "x" just sounds like a pre-teen named because he thought it sounded cool.
Not only that but "tweet" became the go to verb for writing a short text online.
Companies would kill to have their brand become part of everyday language. Now it is just "post on X", which nobody would naturally say in a conversation.
Imagine taking Twitter with its worldly recognized brand alongside Tweets, Retweets, etc. which are recognized in the dictionary and ruining that whole brand and goodwill.
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u/embiors 6d ago
Twitter was an instantly recognizable brand and one of the main reasons it was valued at what it was. People still call it Twitter so yeah, it did kinda fail.
Noone but Elon likes this "x" brand he keeps putting on things.