Lots of news about Twitter this month; if you don’t care or are already saturated, feel free to scroll down to my Twitterless content.
The bluf: Twitter’s dark overlord, Elon Musk, announced on Saturday, July 23, that “soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.” And lo, by the following day the Twitter logo and name—but not the word “tweet”—had disappeared from the platform, replaced by a grim, spindly “X,” Musk’s favorite letter. (In 2000, he wanted to rebrand PayPal as X. He was ousted as CEO, but bought back X.com and went on to found SpaceX, name the Tesla Model X, and sire a child named, alas, Æ A-Xii.)
It’s not quite the end of Twitter, but it sure ain’t what it used to be. I wrote for Medium about what I’ll miss—and am already missing—about Twitter, which I started using in 2008, a lifetime ago.
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There was essentially no brief, other than we want a new bird, and it should be as good as the Apple and Nike logo. Twitter had made some sort of flying goose - but Jack wanted something simpler pic.twitter.com/ruR52lZtLL
— martin grasser (@martingrasser) July 24, 2023
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More on the Twitter upheaval:
“A brief history of the Twitter logo and X.com as Musk ditches the bird” (The Week)
“X is shorthand for danger” and other comments from design-industry honchos on the rebrand (The Drum)
A more tempered view from London-based tech writer Nick Hilton: “I’m reluctant to buy the idea of a ‘rebrand’. Assuming that [Musk] doesn’t announce next week that this was all a bit of a joke designed to (I don’t know: what’s a plausible way of backtracking?) promote SpaceX, I’d rather call this a ‘corporate redirection’ or even a new product launch. Musk is rash, impatient and, let’s face it, at 52, possibly out of step with the internet — but he’s not stupid and he has an innate business sense.”
“Elon Musk’s X Factor,” by Jill Lepore for the New Yorker: The surprising personal and cultural reasons for his “X” affection.
I wrote about X in branding—and Brand X—back in 2014, when Nokia introduced its Nokia X device: “Automakers love X: you can drive a Nissan Xterra (shorthand for ‘cross country’), a Jaguar X-type, or an Infiniti FX, GX, JX, or QX. Gamers love X, indoors (on Microsoft’s Xbox or with Marvel Comics’ X-Men) and outdoors (in the X Games, which started life in 1995 as ‘Extreme Games’ and within two years was initialized). Pharmaceutical companies really love X: you can get an Rx — short for Latin recipe, it means ‘prescription’ — for Xalkori, Xanax, Xeljanz, Xgeva, Xtandi, or Xofigo.”
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Finally, how about some levity?
“If other media companies thought about brand equity the way Elon Musk thinks about Twitter’s (er, X’s),” by Joshua Benton for Nieman Lab. One modest proposal: “CNN, the worldwide leader in news and a proud member of the Warner Bros. Discovery family of content creators, announced today it would henceforth be known simply as N.” (Hat tip: Martin Bishop)
“The Louvre Is Thrilled to Announce It Is Rebranding to ‘UVR,’” by Joseph S. Pete for McSweeney’s: “Is that an acronym? Maybe. Is it a meaningless assemblage of letters? Perhaps. Is it memorable? Searchable? Do we even own the IP? I’m not telling. Doesn’t UVR already mean ‘ultraviolet radiation’? Won’t that just confuse people? Shut up, nerd.”
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More diversion: The New York Times has a name game in beta, and it’s fun and just challenging enough. Play Connections; read about how it was developed (gift link). (Hat tip: DJF)
Scroll down for the solution to this puzzle.
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I’m enjoying Chronophoto, too: Using the slider, identify the years in which five photos were taken. Sometimes clothing, cars, or computer models provide clues; more often they don’t.
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Another excellent newsletter from Rob Meyerson at How Brands Are Built, with updates on standout advertising, creativity resources, and, yes, the Twitter “rebrand” (which fellow name developer Anthony Shore calls a “debrand").
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If in doubt, name your band after literature (Jeremy Gaunt for Medium). I’ll never not enjoy the Steely Dan origin story.
Naked Lunch (1959), the source of “Steely Dan”
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Is Apple really a trademark bully? “Apple’s constant trademark strife indicates that the company has been a victim of its own branding success. The brilliance of its simple, evocative, and against-the-grain name and logo appears to have produced a halo effect, making apple-related branding seem more appealing to other companies. And as apple logos subsequently became more common, a higher level of trademark vigilance by Apple was required.” (James I. Bowie for Fast Company)
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They call the wind Maria, and they’re calling this month’s European heatwave Charon, after the underworld ferryman in Greek mythology. (Hat tip: Lauren Girardin.)
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If there’s a way to embed Bluesky posts (which some people are calling “skeets”—gag me), I haven’t figured it out. Please enjoy this screenshot of Randall Monroe’s photo of an emergency sign.
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How hip-hop got its name. Ben Zimmer’s Wall Street Journal column may be paywalled, so here’s a long excerpt in the Language Hat blog, with erudite comments.
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The word “blackmail” has nothing to do with mail: An excerpt from Jess Zafarris’s forthcoming book Words from Hell: Unearthing the Darkest Secrets of English Etymology, available October 31.
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Barbie is Jewish. (Seventeen-minute documentary from the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco)
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New to me: the Barbie Liberation Organization, founded in 1993 “to challenge deeply ingrained gender stereotypes and expose the insidious influence of consumerism.”
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Connections solution:
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