In the early hours of July 23, 2023, Twitter 鈥 the self-proclaimed digital town square 鈥 . Or did it?
Though it鈥檚 been more than half a year since the divisive rebrand, the platform鈥檚 web domain is still twitter.com 鈥 even . In billing reminders to X Premium subscribers, as viewed by CNN, the email states: 鈥淵our X (formerly Twitter) subscription will renew soon.鈥
It seems that, even though the logo was switched out and verbiage on the website changed, the platform still can鈥檛 quite 鈥渂id adieu to the twitter brand,鈥 as its new owner, billionaire Elon Musk, said in .
While some people (mainly fans of Musk) have embraced the X brand, most have not.
Many people, and in person, still call the platform Twitter, and refer to posts as tweets.
A handful of news outlets still describe it as 鈥淴, the platform formerly known as Twitter,鈥 or some variation thereof.
Last month, when X CEO Linda Yaccarino spoke at a U.S. Senate hearing about social media鈥檚 failure to curb child exploitation, one of the victims鈥 mothers referred to the platform as 鈥淭witter, or now X,鈥 in her video statement.
This may be, in part, to avoid confusion. It鈥檚 also, according to experts, likely due to the psychology of design and branding.
Twitter launched publicly on July 15, 2006, and within a few years had built up widespread brand recognition.
It became one of the few companies 鈥渨ith a product experience so unique that its brand name has become synonymous with a behavior,鈥 Ramon Jimenez, Global Principal at brand consultancy agency Wolff Olins, told CNN via email. 鈥淲e 鈥榯weet,鈥 we 鈥榞oogle,鈥 we 鈥榰ber,鈥 and so on.鈥
Twitter pervaded every part of online life and popular culture. In 2011, the phrase 鈥渢weet鈥 was , with 鈥渞etweet鈥 in the same year.
While Twitter was far from perfect, people flocked (no pun intended) to the platform.
For many, Twitter was a place to share their thoughts on major events as well as big milestones 鈥 from new jobs to engagements and travel. For journalists, it was a way to stay on top of cultural trends and reach out to potential sources. For public figures, it was a way to connect with followers and seem more approachable.
鈥淭he name Twitter, that meant something to users,鈥 Marty Neumeier, author, brand instructor and Director of Transformation at Liquid Agency 鈥 a brand agency 鈥 told CNN.
After Musk bought the platform in October 2022 鈥 six months after initiating the acquisition, which saw its share of controversies 鈥 Twitter quickly changed.
In an effort to reduce costs, 鈥渢he focus was 鈥榗ut as many people as possible as quickly as you can,鈥欌 journalist Zo毛 Schiffer told CNN. Her book, 鈥淓xtremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk鈥檚 Twitter,鈥 in which she recounts the experiences of Twitter staffers under Musk, came out on Feb. 13. These cuts included the majority of the content moderation team and many engineers. The result was an unstable platform and the elevation of misinformation, Schiffer said.
In early 2023, Twitter Inc., the platform鈥檚 parent company, became X Corp. Then, just over 17 years after Twitter went public, Musk that it was time to .
Musk has had for decades 鈥 he wanted to name his first startup X, which was one of the key reasons he had a falling out with his co-founders, said Schiffer. He also named one of his sons X.
鈥淔rom the moment that he decided to buy Twitter, he starts telling his close associates, 鈥楾his is my chance to resurrect x.com.鈥欌
Musk was part of his push to transform the platform into 鈥渢he everything app鈥 鈥 a place that seamlessly unites experiences into one interface, X said in .
While were integrated before the rebrand 鈥 such as Blue subscribers being able to upload hours-long videos and send 鈥 Musk鈥檚 vision wasn鈥檛 fully realized at the time of the rebranding last year.
The rebrand , especially when the logo was changed but the company was slow to update the website itself 鈥 the Twitter branding, including the words 鈥渢weet,鈥 鈥渞etweet鈥 and 鈥渜uote tweet,鈥 were still on the site for days afterward.
Meanwhile, Musk continued to post about his preferred brand terminology, responding to users by saying that and that the should be reassessed. He has since walked this back, saying at The New York Times鈥 DealBook Summit at the end of November that he prefers tweets to be called posts.
鈥淎ll the work that they put into Twitter and tweets and you know, all the cool terminology, that just got erased,鈥 said brand expert Neumeier. Since the 1980s, Neumeier has helped big tech companies 鈥 including Apple, Adobe and Google 鈥 build their brands. He even worked as a brand consultant for Twitter briefly in 2013. 鈥淚t鈥檚 as if it was crossed out with an X. Like, 鈥榶ou can鈥檛 have it anymore.鈥欌
While Twitter isn鈥檛 the first big tech company to rebrand in recent years 鈥 think the parent companies of Google and Facebook changing to Alphabet and Meta, respectively 鈥 it is one of the most extreme examples.
The fact that many users didn鈥檛 understand why Twitter was rebranded made it hard for them to accept the platform as X, all four of the experts CNN spoke to said. Schiffer said it is partly because the core platform itself hasn鈥檛 really changed.
鈥淚 think it鈥檚 one thing to rebrand your company if you鈥檙e launching a completely new product and you really want to widen the scope of what your brand stands for,鈥 said Schiffer. 鈥淚t鈥檚 quite another thing to just slap a new name on an old product.鈥
CNN reached out to X, but it declined to comment.
With audio and video calling, the addition of the Grok AI onto the platform and peer-to-peer payments, which are coming later this year, X may finally be differentiating itself in a bigger way 鈥 although whether it鈥檚 enough for people to stop calling it Twitter remains to be seen.
While Musk鈥檚 fans were among the most vocal about liking the rebrand, they weren鈥檛 the only ones. Schiffer mentioned that many former Twitter staffers were relieved when Musk announced the rebrand, because the company no longer resembled the one they had spent years building and protecting.
鈥淪ome of them really breathed a sigh of relief,鈥 she said. 鈥淭hey were like, 鈥極kay, yeah, Twitter is dead.鈥欌
Twitter鈥檚 rebrand to X has so far fallen flat in mainstream culture, said Neumeier, because the name 鈥済ets lost in sentences鈥 and 鈥渓ooks like a misprint.鈥
Name changes take some getting used to, said James Withey, Global Executive Strategy & Innovation Director for brand specialist Landor 鈥 explaining that people would still call Nissan 鈥淒atsun鈥 for a while in the 鈥80s.
The X rebrand may have a harder journey, Withey said, due to it being an unusual case of a high equity brand 鈥 one that was a cultural force for well over a decade 鈥 being renamed overnight.
鈥淭he choice of new name doesn鈥檛 help, in that it is just a letter and not evocative of the user experience, as Twitter was,鈥 said Withey. 鈥淴 also doesn鈥檛 lend itself to being used as a verb 鈥 鈥業鈥檓 going to X about this鈥 just doesn鈥檛 have the same currency.鈥
Since the rebrand, some X users have continued to advocate for the platform鈥檚 former branding. When one account put out a poll asking what users call the platform, almost 95 per cent of the 33,210 votes were for Twitter. Other fans have created t-shirts with 鈥淚 Still Call It Twitter鈥 emblazoned on the front.
On Reddit, fans of Twitter have taken their aversion to the X name to the extreme. After the rebrand announcement, one user asked whether an entire generation could file a class action lawsuit to prevent the new branding.
鈥淵ou have to remember what a brand is,鈥 said Neumeier. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the customer鈥檚 gut feeling about a product, service or company. So the brand is what they say it is鈥 it鈥檚 not that customers can鈥檛 stop calling it Twitter, it鈥檚 that they won鈥檛.鈥
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