Bye Bye Birdie

Elon Musk acquired Twitter last October for $44B; the company is now worth $15B. (So much for the theory that Musk's a genius.) Since buying the platform, Musk has rampaged through it with narcissistic ferocity and Trumpian ineptitude. He cut back on content moderation. Deliberately or not, he promoted rightwing accounts and conspiracy theories - some promoted by his personal account. The number of users declined, as did traffic. Lots of employees got laid off; lots of employees left because of his heavy handed rule and cruelty. Musk stopped paying a lot of his bills. Like his rent. 

Yes indeed, Twitter under Musk has been a hot (and not-so-hot) mess.

I'm a Twitter user, but not much of one. My 867 (give or take) followers (including my big name followers: Nancy Sinatra and Joyce Carol Oates) puts me above the average (707), and I follow 1,158 (give or take) tweeters. I've never been much for tweeting, but when I started using my dormant account in 2020, during the election season, I was a heavy and regular commenter, which is how I accrued those 867 followers.

When I was active, it was mostly fun to vent with fellow travelers. On Twitter, I reconnected with a couple of former colleagues, and with a grammar school classmate I hadn't seen in nearly 60 years. Sometimes my comments got a lot of play. (My record - I believe it was something about Bill Barr - got over 1,000 likes.) Once in a while, someone responded to one of my comments with a vicious attack. These attacks gave me pause. Unlike the attackers - who were all anonymous - I use my real name and the city I live in. Would this crazy AR-wielding MAGAt actually come after me? Fortunately, I'm such small potatoes, I'm sure that no one would consider me worth the trouble or the bullets. 

There are a number of tweeters I follow because I like their take on things political. These include presidential historian Michael Beschloss, Congressmen Dan Goldman (D-NY) and Jamie Raskin (D-MD), and a couple of legal eagles (Harvard Law professor Lawrence Tribe and Andrew Weissman, who was part of Robert Mueller's crew). I follow some media folks, like Rachel Maddow. And I follow some Red Sox and Boston-related accounts. And a few writers (e.g., JCO and Stephen King).

Because of all the meddling Musk has wrought, the accounts I like to follow don't show up as regularly on my timeline as they used to. Instead, I have to seek them out, or wade through a bunch of right-wing nonsense that Musk has elevated. 

I don't comment as much as I used to, but I still go onto Twitter throughout the day to check on the news. 

But if Twitter went away tomorrow, oh well.

Twitter - the platform - is probably not going away tomorrow, but the Twitter brand, thanks to imperial whim, is no more.

Twitter is now called X, which is Musk's go-to letter. (He even has a child named X Æ A-12, who goes by X.)

Not clear what Tweets will be called. I've seen Xs and I've seen Xeets. My guess is everyone will still call them Tweets, and say that they're tweeting, as opposed to X-ing.

The rebrand is part of a longer-range attempt to turn Twitter, errrrr X, into an app that does everything. As newly minted CEO Linda Yaccarino tweeted/x'd/xeeted (which sounds likes excreted):

"X is the future state of unlimited interactivity — centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking — creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services and opportunities. Powered by A.I., X will connect us all in ways we're just beginning to imagine."

Can't wait to do my banking at the House of Musk. Not.  

On their way to rebrand, they've also gotten rid of the little blue Tweety bird that's been around since the creation. It may not be as universally recognizable as the Coca Cola logo, but anyone on social media sure knows the little blue bird. 

Alas, poor Tweety, it's being replaced by the ultra-inspired X:

Yawn. 

I've got a hunch I'm not going to be long for Twitter X. What'll I do with all that free time?