Scott Nover writes:

Elon Musk, the mercurial owner of Twitter, announced overnight that he is changing the platform’s name and logo to “X.” In doing so, he’s throwing away the brand name, the bird logo, and maybe even the verb “tweet,” all of which breathe financial value into the company he has bought, stripped, and suffocated.

The New York Times reports that Musk spent Monday projecting the letter x in the cafeteria and rechristening conference rooms with names like “s3xy” and “eXposure.”

Indeed, Musk is nothing if not a performer. In that context, this sudden, inartful rebranding can be easily understood as a blatant publicity stunt to distract from the fact that the company, in his clutch, is struggling. Musk overpaid for Twitter, loaded the company with debt, laid off most of its employees, scared away advertisers, and monomaniacally—and quite unsuccessfully—pushed users to pay $8 a month for formerly free features.

The rebranding is very much in the tradition of don’t-look-there-look-over-here corporate marketing. But whether it even succeeds at that is questionable. [Continue reading…]

i’m sorry i can’t think of a joke funnier than twitter failing to get the necessary permits to change their building signage and the police shutting it down just in time for “er” to remain pic.twitter.com/2tzrBNK97K

— parker lyons (@tweetsbyparker) July 24, 2023