However you utilize it, Twitter’s gradual decline over the last few months has been noticeable.
In February, the website broke down for an indefinite period of time. In March, various famous people — including pro athletes — publicly decried paying $8 for a verified blue checkmark. In early July, we saw the first instance of an infamous “rate limit” message when trying to tweet … anything. And then, just a few days later, many flocked over to Meta’s competitor app, Threads, in reaction to some of Twitter’s recent pitfalls.
Despite all of this, the website’s owner Elon Musk seems committed to continue ruining what made the place palatable for most.
In the late hours of Saturday night, Musk revealed Twitter would soon be rebranding to “X.” That famous blue bird everyone knows? Gone.
And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 23, 2023
If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we’ll make go live worldwide tomorrow
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 23, 2023
It’s one thing to change a brand you own to your “vision” (I use vision extremely loosely). Which sure, whatever. But words like “tweet” and “retweet” have literally become famous verbs in the cultural lexicon. And that little blue bird facilitating them was something even non-users of Twitter could easily recognize. Brand goodwill, so to speak, means a lot here!
From every perspective, it’s hard to see how “X” will be a good decision for the platform in the long run. But it’s not out of character based on the last few months.