Bye Bye (Blue) Birdie: As Elon Musk Completely Cages Twitter’s Identity, We Asked Avid Users If X Has Got Any Charm Left At All. Here’s What They Said
“With the name and bird gone, [X] just looks like some ultra-rich technocrat's fantasy and a former shell of what meant something to the rest of us.” Read on to find out more responses.
Elon Musk, not so long ago, was touted as a “real-life Tony Stark” who would deliver us Mars, and help humanity take the next major step in extra-terrestrial human colonisation. He even promised to give the world Hyperloop, an ultra-high-speed rail that could take you from Bengaluru to Chennai in just about 30 minutes. A champion of DeFi and Doge memes, Musk painted a picture of being a billionaire entrepreneur who cared to invest billions for our benefit.
Well, guess we were wrong. And how!
The Musk of today is busy picking up juvenile MMA fights with Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg, claiming how every other AI is ‘evil’ except his own Grok, and coming down hard on free speech and expression by monetising everything we loved about Twitter. The cherry on top? He’s completely caged the blue bird now, as only last week several users across the globe received pop-ups that Musk’s beloved X is now updating URLs in the background, which simply meant that the microblogging platform was now eliminating all mentions of Twitter and the blue bird logo from across all platforms.
Why Did Musk Change Twitter To X?
In case you were wondering after Musk purchased Twitter in a hostile $44-billion takeover in October 2022, he planned to fold the platform into his idea of the ‘everything app’, called X.
Why X, you ask? Well, Musk offered some form of empty-headed enigmatic response that X represents the unknown in algebra, and how ‘X the app’ could be just about anything. Slow claps for the so-called ‘genius’.
The X app, in itself, is planned to be Musk’s version of China’s WeChat, allowing users can do everything from checking bank balances and looking for jobs to watching livestreams and hooking up with dates.
Is The Blue Bird Visible Anywhere?
The simple answer would be: No.
From what ABP Live could figure out, the only Twitter (now X) page where the platform’s iconic blue bird icon is still visible is the tab for the ‘Twitter Publish’ page (screenshot below), which is where you are redirected to when you want to embed an tweet (or am I supposed to call it Xweet now?).
Other than that, the Twitter blue bird, the blue colourway, or anything else from the earlier platform style is not available anywhere.
Does X Have Any Perks?
Not really. Not unless you loosen your purse strings.
Earlier, Twitter used to offer blue-tick verification badges for free, after a thorough round of background verification to ensure the user was genuine. The simple fact that those badges weren’t available all the time for all users made them a truly coveted item on social media.
Now, thanks to Musk’s money-making modus operandi, any user who would subscribe to X Premium, gets the blue badge for free, along with other perks. Which is why you may have seen an onslaught of users with blue badges on the platform, including that of a certain “Jesus Christ” as well as “Not Elon Musk”.
X creators do claim that the new monetisation policy has led to a lot of cash inflow for their content on the platform. However, let me ask you this, was Twitter ever truly a money-making content-making platform like YouTube or TikTok? Or was it a place wheres users would dissect and dissent opinions?
What Do Users Think Of The Bird-Less X?
Has Musk made Twitter great again? Or has X killed off all the charm on the platform? ABP Live reached out to avid X users from different walks of life, trying to understand what they think of X now, nearly two years after Musk took over.
While some moved to Instagram for joy, some moved over to LinkedIn for more readership on their posts and works, one theme was constant among all the respondents - a thorough dip in viewership for non-paying users and an onslaught of spam and bots.
Kiran Manral
Manral (@KiranManral) is the author of 'The Reluctant Detective', 'Karmic Kids', and more books. She is also a columnist, a feminist, and a TEDx speaker. Her answer on ‘if brand identity matters’ is probably the most hilarious yet the most poignant one this author has seen in quite some time.
Q: As an avid Twitter user, does it bother you that you won't be able to see the Twitter bird anymore?
Manral: It was kind of cute, but I've learnt to not get attached to anything in the online world because it can all disappear in an instant anytime.
Q: Any major hurdles you've faced ever since Twitter became X? Any major perks as well?
Manral: No perks that I can think of. But I think reach has decreased as has visibility. Perks would be I don't spend too much time on Twitter or X anymore and am more on Instagram, which is a shinier happier place. And full-on delulu, which you know and accept. Whereas X is like a shoutfest now, that really saps you of joy.
Q: Do you think brand identity matters in the long run? Or do you think people simply overcome and move on?
Manral: People die and the world moves on. What is an online brand?
Rishi Alwani
Alwani (@RishiAlwani) is a seasoned gaming writer, whose long-running newsletter, 0451 Games, has a rather simple-yet-apt aim: "Uncovering the video games business for fun and profit."
Q: As an avid Twitter user, does it bother you that you won't be able to see the Twitter bird anymore?
Alwani: Yes it does. As someone who has been on it in some shape or form since 2008, it's a bit disheartening. Like Xbox getting rid of the black-and-green colours that’s an iconic part of its branding.
Q: Any major hurdles you've faced ever since Twitter became X? Any major perks as well?
Alwani: A lot more bots. A lot more spam. And outbound traffic has pretty much been destroyed.
I run a newsletter on the PC and console games space. At one point in time, Twitter was 50 per cent of my traffic. Now it's barely 1 per cent. Thankfully LinkedIn's replaced it for meaningful readers.
Q: Do you think brand identity matters in the long run? Or do you think people simply overcome and move on?
Alwani: Brand identity matters as an emotion. You connect with what it was and what it promised. Which in the case of Twitter and the bird was meaningful conversation and substance. It left an impression no doubt.
While people do move on inevitably (likely to Threads and Instagram), Twitter reminded me of what the old-school days of internet forums were like. And with the name and bird gone, it just looks like some ultra-rich technocrat's fantasy and a former shell of what meant something to the rest of us.
Neeta Kolhatkar
Kolhatkar (@neetakolhatkar) is an independent journalist with over two decades of experience of reporting on various sectors, and whose X feed is full of delightful captures that tend to make you take a second and ‘think’.
Q: As an avid Twitter user, does it bother you that you won't be able to see the Twitter bird anymore?
Kolhatkar: Initially it took a while to adjust to not see the blue bird. But you know these social media platforms keep making constant adjustments and changes as mundane as changing some cursor from left to bottom right, changing looks constantly with every update.
Q: Any major hurdles you've faced ever since Twitter became X? Any major perks as well?
Kolhatkar: There have been NO perks as an ordinary user. Hurdles, definitely it is less of free space and a lot of rhetoric. They support certain IT cell sorts while they allow harassment and trolling of opponents/opposing voices.
These are contradictions while one expects the same parameters to be used.
Q: Do you think brand identity matters in the long run? Or do you think people simply overcome and move on?
Kolhatkar: People take it in their stride and move on, or they must, because that's how social media needs to be taken. It is virtual, NOT real.
Raja
Raja’s (@raja_sw) tweets don’t hold back from expressing his disappointment, shock, and sometimes even anger at the current geopolitical scenario. His bio aptly says, “Nationalism blinds people to atrocities by the State.” He didn’t hold back while offering his take on Musk’s treatment of the blue bird, either.
Q: As an avid Twitter user, does it bother you that you won't be able to see the Twitter bird anymore?
Raja: Not really. In the beginning, I missed the Twitter bird. The logo had a character of its own – and was far more friendly, and suitable for social media than just an X.
However creatively you design the X, it is still just that – the character X, without any emotion behind it. But then I got used to it – and have moved on. To be honest, for me, the other changes in X were much more overwhelming – the logo change was the least bothersome of them all.
Q: Any major hurdles you've faced ever since Twitter became X? Any major perks as well?
Raja: The biggest hurdle I’ve faced since Twitter became X is that my reach and engagement have become ridiculously low, almost close to nil. I’ve never had a blue tick, but my engagement used to be pretty robust. I used to engage a lot with other handles and get a lot of engagement in return too.
I’d easily get thousands of views, often get RTs/Likes. After it became X, I began noticing a drop in views.
Now it has reached such a ridiculous extent that I have serious doubts whether many of my tweets are seen by anyone at all. It’s not like I’ve changed the content or style of what I’ve been tweeting since 2009. I put this down to Musk trying his best to nudge people to go for the blue (or other) tick.
The blue tick today is purely a monetisation tool – unlike in the past. I’m told it’s all down to the algorithms at play.
It could also be that, since October 7, I’ve been tweeting a lot about Palestine, highlighting Gaza atrocities by Israel, and RTing many pro-Palestine voices.
I think X is taking specific action to suppress pro-Palestine engagement and handles. I sometimes see “7 replies” to my tweet – but when I dive in to see the replies, I see nothing. So yes, this is my biggest issue with Twitter ever since it became X.
Other issues exist too.
There is this proliferation of porn bots that keep replying to tweets – they’re an annoyance not just to me, but to lots of people. Many have pointed this out.
Earlier, I used third-party apps to monitor followers/unfollowers. They used APIs to access Twitter to provide users with details. Now those apps don’t work.
Sometimes I see tweets of people I’ve blocked – which is annoying.
On the whole, I get a feeling that Twitter as X is being “held together by tape”, if you know what I mean. You’re never sure what is going to break when. Personally, I think Musk doesn’t care too much about X as a product – he seems to have other priorities, unlike Jack Dorsey for whom Twitter was very much his baby when he was in charge.
Speaking of perks, the only thing I can think of as a possible improvement since Twitter became X is the reporting of tweets/users. The process seems to be easier now. More importantly, I think action is taken faster now by X.
Whether this is really true, or just a perception, I don’t know. In the past, Twitter would take ages to act, if at all, on a reported tweet.
Q: Do you think brand identity matters in the long run? Or do you think people simply overcome and move on?
Raja: I think it depends on how entrenched the brand’s values are in the product. For example, when you think of an automobile brand, say Mercedes Benz or Volvo, you associate certain values with it.
You EXPECT certain features in the product – e.g. safety with Volvo. Similarly, you expect certain things from an Apple phone. This is the DEPTH of entrenchment of the brand with the product and values it espouses.
With Twitter becoming X, I don’t think there was that depth to start with. It’s not like “It’s Twitter, so it must have a,b,c values.”
So yes, while there was a bit of adaptation to name-change required, it wasn’t such a big deal - at least for me.
It’s like Facebook is now Meta, but people still call it Facebook. Same with Alphabet, and many more name-changes. Unless your product STANDS for something identified immediately with your brand, I don’t think it matters all that much. Call it A today, B tomorrow.
Nimish Dubey
Dubey (@nimishdubey) is a veteran technology journalist and frequent collaborator with ABP Live. His (often tongue-in-cheek) tweets and retweets are all about the two great romances of India - politics and cricket.
Q: As an avid Twitter user, does it bother you that you won't be able to see the Twitter bird anymore?
Dubey: A bit, actually. There was a simple chirpiness about the blue bird (pun intended), and of course, one got so used to it over time. X for me still reminds me of X-men or X-files. It is not as welcoming as the blue bird was, and heck, it is a pain to find on the phone app menu if you have dark theme on, but one gets used to it.
Q: Any major hurdles you've faced ever since Twitter became X? Any major perks as well?
Dubey: Zero perks, alas. In terms of hurdles, things going wrong at random do seem to happen more frequently than in the past, and we seem to be getting more tweets than ever from folks whom we not only do NOT follow, but who we would not follow if you paid us for it. It is as much a troll paradise as before, alas.
Q: Do you think brand identity matters in the long run? Or do you think people simply overcome and move on?
Dubey: Brand identity does matter in the long run. But in the case of Twitter, the identity of the brand is very closely tied up with what the product does, and that has not changed. In some ways, this is pretty much like Apple swapping the multicoloured Apple with a monochrome one - the product did not change. And that is why people will simply move on.
After all, it is still business as usual - just ask the trolls!
Digital Disconnect is an ABP Live-exclusive column, where we explore the many admirable advancements the world of tech is seeing each day, and how they lead to a certain disconnect among users. Is the modern world an easier place to live in, thanks to tech? Definitely. Does that mean we don’t long for things to go back to the good-ol’ days? Well, look out for our next column to find out.
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