Twitter’s rebrand to ‘X’ continues to trigger public outrage as its glowing logo lights up the San Francisco night, raising questions.
It’s been a week already, yet the disbelief continues to linger. Twitter, the social media giant we all knew and loved, is now ‘X.’ The logo hasn’t changed, and it remains the same universal unicode symbol. The term ‘Tweet’ has become a thing of the past, with the familiar button now reading ‘Post.’ As if sticking to a peculiar tradition of Elon Musk’s leadership, this rebrand—deemed the most contentious of the year—is still finding novel ways to stir up public angst.
Imagine no more. This is my life now. https://t.co/k5QfAm8yuG pic.twitter.com/e7ECCM2NUD
— Christopher J. Beale (@realchrisjbeale) July 29, 2023
Just days after a misguided endeavor to replace the sign outside their San Francisco base from ‘Twitter’ to ‘X’—an incident that necessitated police intervention due to permit issues—the company made a bold move. They erected a gigantic, glowing ‘X’ at the top of their headquarters. And as expected, it was not well-received by local residents. (Yearning for some nostalgia? Refresh your memory with the best logos of all time.)
One wouldn’t typically imagine that a single light could disturb an entire city, yet here we are. San Francisco’s inhabitants have been using… well, ‘X,’ to voice their disapproval, sharing videos of the glaring, pulsating light. A desolate user wrote, “This is my life now,” echoing the sentiments of many others.
The Guardian reported that city building inspectors speculate the display might be breaching certain rules. Although a representative from ‘X’ responded that the sign was only temporary, the damage to public sentiment appears to be done. In fact, one of the disgruntled residents observed that the infamous sign was “dark” the previous night, likely a result of the mounting public dissatisfaction.
This unusual situation is the latest in what’s becoming a notorious rebranding saga. With design modifications happening within hours and the X logo being crowdsourced, the unpredictability of this process has been its only consistent feature. This whirlwind transformation makes the rather prompt launch of Meta‘s Threads seem like it was moving at a snail’s pace.
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