Twitter. Either you love it, or you hate it. It never had the brag rights of early-day Instagram. Or the airing-dirty-family-laundry flair of Facebook. But rather had a whiff of high school debate gone public. With higher reach and more than often the lack of a filter.
It became the prime spot to facilitate conversations. From sports and tech to giving a voice to repressed regimes and watching politics play out like a soap opera. So much so that Trump got banned from Twitter in January 2021.
But then Elon Musk got his hands in the blue pie.
At first it seemed like an April Fool’s joke. With a whole lot of back and forth and a protracted legal spat as Musk attempted to back out of the $44 million deal.
But then it happened.
From the get-go, Musk changed Twitter. Left, right and centre.
He fired the CEO, Parag Agrawal, as well as the heads of finance and legal policy.
The blue tick of verification changed to a paid feature.
He hinted towards a Vine comeback. To put a video feature behind a paywall, similar to OnlyFans. And of course, to bring back the likes of Trump.
All of this left many users in an iffy state. And it inspired Zuckerberg to do what he does best: CTRL C, CTRL V… enter Threads.
But the last change is a big one.
The Twitter bird has gone from critically endangered to extinct
The Twitter logo as we know it left the nest. And the baby blue will soon experience a solar eclipse.
First, he asked how people would feel about the look changing to black.
Twenty minutes later it was clear: for Musk change should happen faster than what it takes to charge a Tesla.
It was clear. He wanted to kill the bird.
And he has a thing for his X’es.
Then came a fan-submitted X.
And Elon rolled with it.
Welcome to Twitter 3.0
Change waits for no one. And certainly not for Elon. An hour ago the logo was still just news. A snapshot on Elon’s Twitter X profile. Now the loading screen is an X. And the bird is gone.
This is not a Muscles and Mayhem Netflix documentary but it has rather a looming musky scent of Musk (and) Mayhem. Just hours after Musk revealed the news — what seems like ants in his social pants — he also took to social media to announce that Twitter has been given a brand-new URL.
Yes. You’ve guessed it. X.com.
This is the end of Twitter as we know it.
Only time will tell what a “tweet” will be known as going forward. An x?
But for now it is bye bye birdie. You’ve been with us since 2010.
Bye bye baby blue.
And soon, bye bye to the twitter.com URL.