No Stupid Questions @lemmy.world Steve @communick.news 4w ago

How long do you think we'll keep seeing "formerly Twitter"?

I'm genuinely curious about peoples thoughts on this.

It made sense for a while. But the branding change was 16 months ago. The URI change was 3 months ago. Everybody knows now what X is. Yet for some reason, I still see in news stories today:
"... on X — formerly known as Twitter — and said ..."
I really don't think that's needed anymore. But I'm always one to want changes as fast and painless as possible.

So what do you think would be an appropriate amount of time to keep reminding everyone that Twitter is now X?
Months?
Years?
How many?

83 comments

Forever, because X looks like a placeholder and media wants to be clear so they use the name that people actually associate with that trash website. It will never just be X because it is a terrible name for a business.
- Also shitter, xitter, shitler.
  
  That dumbfuck tryin so hard is so funny though...
  
  Is he trying to look like the letter "X"?
  
  It’s like he has the concept of jumping
I never stopped calling it Twitter. X is a window manager, a letter of the alphabet, or the most algebraic variable name. It's not a name for a company.
- tHe EvErYtHiNg aPp!!!11
  
  It's just twitter and a zoom clone right?
- X also gonna give it to ya
As long as it makes Musk mad 😂
- I think it might be this. A lot of traditional media outlets are mad about twitter becoming such a necessity for them. The old guard is mad that they have to cater to this bullshit online platform. The new guard is mad at the fact that the best outlet for breaking online news is suddenly owned and operated by a fascist.
  
  All of them want to say that x is bullshit, but they don't want to actually lose the clicks/ market share that comes with it. So they keep passive-aggressively calling it twitter.
  
  Drunkenly thinking about it, this is kinda like calling a trans person by their dead name. Except it's insulting a shitty company led by a shithead, so I'm cool with it.
  
  Especially when said shithead is fine with deadnaming people.
It will always be Twitter to me. X is a variable in a math problem... not a company name. Oh, I'm also lazy and have never used Twitter.
Hopefully until the platform dies
I think, the main problem is that "X" doesn't look like a name.

When someone's not starkly aware of the platform being called that, they might think the author typoed.
Or is using it like the idiom "they posted it to X, Y and Z" (so just a nondescript set of platforms).
Or genuinely means the letter X and that just doesn't make sense in the context presented.

"X, formerly Twitter" is just a better name than "X", because it is recognizable.
Twitter is the only time I will ever be okay with deadnaming.
It's still twitter now and always will be so it doesn't matter.
I’ll keep calling it twitter as long as musk keeps deadnaming his daughter
- So you'll call it X if he becomes a good parent?
  
  Ha! Fat chance of that happening.
  
  I dunno, maybe.
- Which daughter, what's the source for that?
  
  Edit: I have now been provided with a source, thanks!
  
  Vivian. She publicly denounced him, changed her name, and gave an interview about how horrible musk is as a father. There are many articles written about this, here is just one.
  
  https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musk-transgender-daughter-vivian-wilson-interview-rcna163665
  
  This might not be to anyone's satisfaction though because it suggests he doesn't refer to Vivian at all, considering her "dead", not actually deadnaming her, per se.
I'm pretty sure that "x, formerly known as twitter" is the name of the company. So... forever.
Everyone collectively agreed x is stupid and I hope spite will make sure this sentiment never changes
- Almost as stupid as facebook creating a platform called threads. Zero creativity, and maxium collaboration inconvience with our language usage, plus facebook trying to stick their nose in fediverse where the whole point was to get away from their centralized metaverse BS. Facebook can fuck off.
Without another name change, I don't think that phrase will ever go away, for the simple fact that X as a name is too short and nondescript. In speech, X could refer to a someone you broke up with, or it could just be the beginning of another word, serving as a prefix. In text, it could refer to the actual letter itself, or the close button on a window, or a placeholder, or something NSFW.

There's simply too many ways that X can be interpreted that even if people associate Twitter with X, people will still specify "formerly Twitter" just to avoid confusion
How long was Prince "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince"?

Yeah, the rest of his life.

Twitter probably will have the same laid upon it.
- You’re referring to the former artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince?
- How long was Prince "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince"?
  
  For about seven years, and then he went back to calling himself Prince again.
- Prince changed his name to a literally unpronounceable logo. So in that case, there was no real other option.
  
  If we say that the accepted pronunciation of "X" is "ex" then we run into an even bigger problem than Prince's logo.
  
  "Ex" User says... Is this a former user of the website or current?
  
  A user on the website "ex" is too long winded and sounds like I'm saying a hypothetical.
  
  Users on "ex" - although shorter, X is a street name for ecstacy and user is sometimes used as shorthand for drug user (e.g. User and abuser) so why should we be listening to a cracked out party kid?
  
  The golden ticket is "formerly Twitter" because we actually know what the fuck that one is.
  
  I'm willing to bet there's at least one X user on X right now.
  
  Some places tried calling him "The Artist", but it never stuck. Not even "The Artist formerly known as Prince" stuck. But "Prince" has endured to his grave and beyond.
Forever, unless they start calling it Xcom (which would then be confused with the game) X itself could also mean Xorg (https://x.org) which is a lot older. Not to mention that it looks like someone forgot to remove a placeholder "in the site X, many people talk about..."
Xitter has quite the ring to it.
- In my headcanon, Twitter users were called twits, so Xitter users are called xits, pronounced appropriately.
- When I see "Xitter", I think it might be pronounced Exeter, like the town in southwest England. But that feels like an undeserved slight against the good people of Devon and England.
  
  i pronounce it like Xi, like zhitter, or just shitter
They really shouldn't be allowed to name anything after a single letter. VW, BMW, ABC, TBS are all bad enough. X conflicts with too many established uses.
- None of those brands you mention are letters. They mean things, and in fact started by being called those things, but people organically shortened their names. Stress on organically. X as a name is trying so hard to sound cool and futuristic that people felt forced to adopt it, and instantly hated it.
Pretty sure it's still just twitter
We didn't stop hearing Prince referred to as "the artist formerly known as Prince" until he changed his name from that symbol back to Prince.

I expect the same for the website formerly known as Twitter.
I don't think ever. Twitter has too big of a brand name and recognition, where X does not, and they'll keep coasting on it (their emails to you still say "formerly known as Twitter"). News sites and places will keep calling it Twitter because X is too confusing of a name, and certain parts of their reader-base will simply have no idea who it is that they're on about, and some social media will call it Twitter because X is a silly name, and they do not respect Elon Musk's rebranding of Twitter in much the same way that he does not respect his daughter's name or identity.
- I didn't realize their own promotional emails still reference Twitter. That's intereating.
It will always be Twitter to me
Hopefully in a year or two they'll eventually just call it Twitter or maybe if we're lucky it will go out of business and then they'll probably still just call it Twitter because the X thing would then have just been a short lived portion of its overall lifespan.
I think it will take a whole generation to die off before that happens, because X just isn't significant enough as a word. You can't say "I saw it on X" and have people understand you. You can't say I exed, people still continue saying "I tweeted". "I posted on X" is simply inferior.
I never stopped calling it Twitter and I never will. Just like Facebook will always be Facebook.
X is just a vague term though. It's also often used as a placeholder for unknown or variable things. So the "formerly Twitter" is going to stick for quite a while.

It's like naming a product "The Thing". Anyone who talks about it will always have to clarify what Thing they are talking about basically forever.
- Came to say this. X is a terrible name. It's a placeholder for so many things. Elon is so obsessed with a letter, it's wildly stupid.
I think one of the reasons why we're still seeing this done by journalists is because Elon's takeover is probably relevant to whatever it is they're reporting. I've definitely seen articles just refer to it as "X". But whenever it's a story about some crazy racist shit someone said or how poorly their advertising business is doing, it's "formerly Twitter".

That said, I think online people who aren't writing for news outlets and aren't insane will — for the most part — always call it Twitter out of spite until the site either dies or Musk sells it and it changes back.
Comcast introduced the "Xfinity" branding in 2010. I still call refer to it as "Comcast". Any conversation I have where an ISP comes up, the word "Comcast" is used. If someone says "Xfinity", they often follow it up with "you know, Comcast".

Now that's a VERY clear brand change.

The name "X" is a VERY confusing brand change. It will likely be called Twitter forever. In fact at some point Musk will sell or give up on "X" and I guarantee within a year the new owner will change the name back to Twitter.
- In that case Comcast is still the company name. Xfinity is just a branding of the consumer services division.
  
  Sure it isn't a perfect comparison, but the idea is the same.
The next gen is gonna be making fun of Gen Z by saying "formally Twitter" and Millennials are finally going to win.
- It'll be the first win we ever had. We damn sure aren't winning in the housing market.
  
  Hey, millenials. Show of hands, who has a house???
  
  See, millenials HAVE hands. You just don't see them, because none of us have houses.
  
  We're doing ok in Europe.
  
  Even with lower salaries than the US, most people in their 30s I know have a mortgage.
  
  I myself bought at 31 with my wife.
  
  It's not affordable for everyone but it's doable for people with actual salaries, you just might have to compromise a bit on position or size.
- Only allowed to use it when wearing a penguin suit.
Never. It will always be just "Twitter".
I keep seeing people call it "X, the Everything App" and ngl it's funny every single time
Twitter, formerly known as X
It is happening. If you look for news of, e.g. "Arnold Schwarzenegger endorses Harris", most outlets just say 'X'.

In my results, The Guardian, the BBC, The Independent, Fortune, MSNBC, The Washington Post and The Hill just used 'X'. Politico said 'on social media'. Only Forbes did the 'formerly Twitter' thing.
No one likes their x
- I see what you did there
Until the public short message service no longer exists?

This could happen in a number of ways.
They will just call it threads. Because that's what they will use
Until the company is dead
I’m in favor of calling it X because it’ll die quicker.
I dunno. but I wonder if he owns xvideos.
My mind keeps coming up with tag lines for X….

X:

… where the fruits of piracy can be found

… - rated best for quirky images

… where you’ll find that special someone you realized you DON’T want to spend the rest of your life with.

Anyone got more?
- ...the best coffee shop for nazis. ...a modern dating app for the ugliest humanity has to offer. ...bro! ...this is what happens when you abuse ketamine.
- X: It's like Twitter, but it's shitter.
Seriously though, what is x.com and the x app? I just followed the link to google play and it seems'ish like it's just the twitter microblog, but I'm seeing things mentioned that I didn't think are part of twitter. I've never used twitter or any x products, so I'm actually in the dark.
I have been mentally keeping track how often I see "formerly Twitter" and I'm surprised that it's lasted this long tbh
I see a lot of outlets no longer saying formerly Twitter.
I like X.com only because I like X-Com
About six to twelve more months then people will call it X
Just call it the X social media site
im using an open source app to view calyx jabber server

edit: OHHH the name.
I don't think the platform will last long enough to care. In a year or two it'll be "X, formely known an Twitter, currently remembered as Elon's clusterfuck."
Yeah, its getting absurd by now. Maybe we should help with the rebranding a lil bit... In Polish I prefer to call it exTwitter, but in English I'd hope calling it just "formerly" will catch on.

83 comments