X: The Internet’s New Dumpster Fire
I wrote a while back about #elonmusk 's gamble on Twitter . I will pat myself on the back and say I nailed it, but now he’s taking another roll of the dice, and god knows who’s been blowing on them. X is here in the most frantic, haphazard and undignified way possible. Well, parts are. A lot of the site/app is still Twitter (notice the URL below), so I’ll be referring to it as Twitter/X for now and maybe for a while.??
Good Branding Costs Millions; No, It Doesn’t
As someone mentioned on Twitter/X, somewhat?sarcastically a few days ago:?
Peter Yang (@petergyang ):?
“My mind is blown that this happened over a weekend with a logo from a user.
Doesn’t this corporate rebrand stuff usually involve paying expensive consultants a few million dollars to make nice strategy decks?”
He’s not necessarily correct; #branding doesn’t have to cost millions to develop, but it can make a company millions if done correctly. People probably get bored hearing me say it, but look at 苹果 or 耐克 . The brand isn’t the logo; sure, they have nice logos, but you don’t buy a MacBook for the Apple logo on the back that you can’t see when you’re using it; you could stick an Apple sticker on a Dell if you wanted to. A brand is how you engage with the world around you as a weird, amorphous entity that most people struggle to understand (or a company, as we commonly call them).?
A Short History Of Branding
#branding , as a concept, has a rich history. The term 'brand' comes from the Old Norse word 'brandr,' meaning 'to burn,’ because it denoted, “This is my cow; leave it alone”.? During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, branding continued as a mark of craftsmanship and ownership, used by artisans and craftsmen to signify origin and quality. Customers sought out these marks, understanding that they guaranteed a certain standard.
However, the modern branding concept didn't emerge until the 19th century, coinciding with the industrial revolution. This period brought a shift from local to mass production, and products were transported over vast distances. This increased competition among manufacturers, necessitating ways to differentiate their products. Branding evolved as a strategy to establish a product's identity and distinguish it from competitors. This was when trademarks were established, and companies began investing in building and maintaining their brand.???
Back To You In The Studio?
领英推荐
Now, back to Twitter/X. Apart from the trademark issues Musk will likely face and the fact that it’s now only a few Xs away from being something more explicit, what has this ‘rebrand’ told the world about Twitter/X??
First, it tells us Elon is still very much in charge. Linda Yaccarino was the head of advertising at NBCUniversal . A brand roll-out like this must be making her head spin, much in opposition to what she’s said, but come on, you don’t work in #advertising for that long and think this X business is a good idea.????????
Secondly, it makes it very clear what Elon doesn’t care about. We know he’s taken a crack at #branding and #marketing before, but that hasn’t stopped him from creating a very engaging brand in Tesla ; well-named, a deep and meaningful brand connection to its customers (think of the specific tech he’s implemented in the cars; you can play games while you’re stationary! Think of the vast super-charger network that is the backbone of their engagement with customers). Tesla lives up to its brand promise. So why doesn’t X? Well, it does (will).?
Deliberately Lacklustre, For The LOLZ?
This isn’t disruptive branding. It’s deliberately lacklustre. And this tells us a lot. Twitter/X has become ‘The Place’ for the people who see themselves as the down-and-outs, the odd-balls, the contrarians (even if it’s all a bit of a self-delusion). This branding approach speaks directly to them; it’s not for you, the people who like a friendly, shiny brand that works well and is pleasant and engaging on a mass level. This whole rebrand firmly addresses the question of who Twitter/X is for. It’s now for the Wild West outlaws. It’s the place you can go to say things you can’t say anywhere else due to stuff like moderation and having to be nice to people. A lot has been made of X being the ‘everything app’. The irony is that X is more likely to be seen as the stop sign for most, don’t come here.?
Those of us who work in #branding would have been fired by our clients if we’d rolled out something like this. It’s visually shoddy and is jarring to most current users. It’s not enticing to new users, and for what the platform is, ‘X’ doesn’t mean anything. If #elonmusk wanted an ‘everything’ app, it would have been much easier to build it from scratch (and cheaper). The lexicon of Twitter (tweet, retweet, etc.), using the brand name as a Verb, is something almost any brand would kill for, and he’s throwing that away deliberately. Some would call it an act of self-sabotage.???????
However, for Elon, it’s a feature, not a bug. It signals the down-and-dirty nature of what he wants Twitter/X to be. Far from becoming the everything platform, it’s much more likely to become a niche site for social outcasts with views they know are less than acceptable in modern society and the politically provocative. For a while, those of us who like an argument (guilty) or the rubberneckers of the world will hang around, but how long will it be before it is just a 4Chan wannabe? It’s not far off, currently. Even the idea of verification has been an odd one. People spouting nonsense behind a @dave12345353 username was familiar on old Twitter, but now nonsense is spouted by verified accounts out in the open without fear of being cancelled. I’ve seen pure and outright racism being vociferously shared by these new verified accounts, and even after multiple reports (and I couldn’t have been the only one), they’re still there, joking that they’ll get banned at some point when they clearly won’t.
Where’s The $$ At??
Then there’s the issue of how Twitter/X will continue to be funded. Musk brought in Yaccarino because she can bring advertisers back to the platform, but who in their right mind will advertise on a platform where if you hit the key a few too many times, you’re suddenly on a porn site?! What does it mean for #seo , and how the brand appears online outside of the direct website? Bizarrely, the most extensive search tends for X comes from people searching for ‘My Sports Team’ X ‘AN Other Sports team’, and mainly from Brazil. It’s all a bit of a nightmare in practice. Don’t worry, though; the MyPillow ads will still be there.?
Get Off My Land
So, in all, I can only see this rebrand in the frame of ‘we don’t want you here’, almost a middle finger to the majority. You could already start to see this appearing in the way they ran their most recent ‘content monetisation’ campaign, which seemed to be, let’s call it, skewed to a particular type of content creator. This is fine, but #tech platforms operate on scale, and Musk has spoken at length about open speech, democratisation and ‘the global town square’; this #rebrand and all of the markers associated with it suggest none of this. I suspect we’re about to witness the next internet dumpster fire. Instagram ’s timing with #threadsapp was somewhat fortuitous, I wouldn’t call it an X-odus yet, but there’s undoubtedly going to be a shift, and this brand exercise almost encapsulates it perfectly.??
You can still find me on X: https://x.com/michaelhutt , although I'll be on brand, and most of my output will be shit-posting. I'm also on Threads, where I'll be taking a kinder and more considered approach to things: https://www.threads.net/@mhutt27