It’s not really a secret that Elon Musk has an obsession with the letter X; he loves the letter so much that, essentially, anything he touches gets an “X” one way or another (human beings included). We’ve gone at length discussing the renaming process and the steps that led up to the blue bird’s death in a previous article; what we haven’t discussed yet are the ramifications of this hasty name change, something that Musk is experiencing right now.
With a controversial and edgy letter as the face of a massive company, the platform formerly known as Twitter has taken a lot of hits in the last few weeks alone. Due to the sudden change, the uninformed masses mistook the app for a sort of virus that just appeared on their phones, and it was even thought to be an adult content site by one country, which proceeded to block it.
More often than not, rebranding and renaming are often used as a last-ditch effort to cleanse a company of any bad juju. It’s a move that is hardly done for the fun of it, as it would throw away decades-worth of brand recognition. Twitter was one of those platforms that was so recognisable that it coined new terms that we casually throw around on a daily basis, like “Tweets”, “Retweets”, and “Twitter videos.” People have raised some concerns about whether X is meant to follow in its footsteps and rename these coined terms as something like “Xs”, “re-Xs”, and “Xvideos”, with the last one being the most alarming of the bunch due to its association with the adult industry.
Despite glaring concerns, Musk pushed forward with the name change, even claiming the rights to the domain X.com,” which will soon replace Twitter.com. In its current state, however, X.com will only redirect users to Twitter.com. However, because of the aforementioned controversial letter and sudden change, many associate it with the adult industry, especially in Indonesia.
Indonesia has blocked access to the domain “X.com” for the general public due to the domain’s historical associations with gambling and pornography, both of which are in violation of the country’s strict content laws. The government has since been in contact with a representative of the Musk-owned site to clear up the misunderstanding.
“Earlier today, we spoke with representatives from Twitter, and they will send a letter to us to say that X.com will now be used by Twitter,” – Usman Kansonghe, Director General of Information and Public Communication at the Ministry of Communication and Informatics, told local media.
However, the trouble doesn’t stop there, as Musk also faces problems with The Apple App Store. Musk wanted to change the company from top to bottom into X with the snap of a finger, but he hit a roadblock with the mobile version for a time due to Apple’s minimum character requirements. App names for iOS “can be up to 30 characters long,” but they must be at least 2 characters long or they will be rejected by Apple. However, with enough money, the problem was eventually sorted out, officially spelling the death of Twitter.
Despite this, people on the internet could not help but mourn while laughing about their favourite app, as they commemorated the bird’s life and death through memes, with some saying that Twitter was raging against the changes. Even popular IPs such as Sesame Street have made fun of Musk, X.corp, and the situation as a whole in their own little ways.
