this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
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[–] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 84 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Twitter gets their iconic branding enshrined in the dictionary as a verb - one of the very few companies that have achieved the feat - and Elon chucks it all in the bin.

[–] Realtrain@kbin.social 46 points 2 years ago (1 children)

And not even as a genericized term. (Google and Xerox HATE that they're used as verbs.)

"Tweet" is only ever used to describe posting to Twitter. It's a very unique position that's about as ideal as it gets for a company brand.

[–] ConsciousCode@beehaw.org 4 points 2 years ago

You can lose your trademark if your name becomes generic

[–] supercriticalcheese@feddit.it 28 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Genious.

He found the fastest way to burn 44B$, me reckons.

[–] dismalnow@kbin.social 13 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (4 children)

I got curious and did the math if $44B was denominated in $100 bills.

That's 496.85 cubic kilometers of cash. Or a pile of money that covers half of the continental US, stacked 1/4 of the height of Low Earth Orbit.

I honestly don't think one could physically burn that much cash since May 2022 in real life.

Edit: more mind bogglery!

The earth is ~40,000 km in circumference, so you could stack the bills almost 28m high around the equator (or circle the globe 256,482 times.)

[–] azdle@news.idlestate.org 11 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I think you found an extra factor of a thousand somewhere along the way. I get 497 cubic meters: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%280.0043+inches++2.61+inches++6.14+inches%29+*+%2844+billion+%2F+100%29

[–] therealpygon@kbin.social 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Your wording needs some work there. If you're trying to say that the "pile" would reach 1/4 low earth orbit and cover half the continental US, you're absolutely incorrect. If you are saying it is a "pile of money" that "when laid out as a single layer can cover half of the continental US" or "when made into a single stack would reach 1/4 of the height of LEO", that would be mostly accurate. For perspective, 44 billion would be 44k briefcases, or 440 pallets. That's about 17 semi trailers (single high) or 9 trailers double-stacked. As a "pile" it could easily fit in a single Wal-mart parking lot and wouldn't even be that high. Still a lot of money though.
Edit: Actually, I don't even think the continental US number is accurate. A single bill is 16 in^2. Laid out as a single layer of single $1 bills, that covers ~7e11 in^2 which is about 175 square miles, not even 1/2 of Rhode Island.

[–] state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That doesn't sound right. I get a volume of about 1.13 cubic cm per 100 dollar bill. There are 440 million 100 dollar bills needed for 44 billion. That gives us a volume of about 500 cubic meters. That's not even a large warehouse. Even for 1 dollar bills we would then only have roughly 50000 cubic meters, which is a far cry from 500 cubic kilometers, which would be about 5*10^11 cubic meters. A single stack of 44 billion 1 dollar bills would be about 4800km high.

[–] rm_dash_r_star@lemm.ee 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

In imperial units I get this for a single stack of 44B in $100 bills;

.0043 inches * 44B / (12 inches in a foot * 5280 feet in a mile) = 2986 miles

That would be approximately the distance from Los Angeles to New York. That's a long stack of bills.

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[–] ConsciousCode@beehaw.org 5 points 2 years ago

Putting it this way makes me kind of sad. It's weird because Twitter has been an undeniable cancer on society too, so I'm split between being glad for their demise and feeling sorry for the ruin of their achievements.

[–] SpunkyBarnes@geddit.social 33 points 2 years ago (2 children)

This is the poster child for enshittification; RIP bluebird, we salute what you were.

[–] SemioticStandard@beehaw.org 57 points 2 years ago (2 children)

It’s not even enshittification. If it were that at least would be understandable through a capitalistic lens, a natural part of an investor-owned process. It’s the actions and thinking of a man-child with all the brilliance of a 40 watt bulb. No logic is to be had here.

[–] Sinnerman@kbin.social 6 points 2 years ago

It's "enswastification."

[–] SpunkyBarnes@geddit.social 6 points 2 years ago

“Brighter than a 30 watt lightbulb.”, yep, have to agree.

[–] thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 20 points 2 years ago

xXshitifiicationXx

[–] Mereo@lemmy.ca 27 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

This is a stupid move. It's like Google changing its name to something else. Now everyone says "you need to Google this" instead of "you need to search this on the internet". Twitter has become a recognised brand and tweeting has become a verb in the dictionary. He's destroying years of work. At this point, we can safely say that his behaviour is not rational.

[–] melroy@kbin.melroy.org 11 points 2 years ago

I'm happy they kill themselves by this name change. Haha

[–] ConsciousCode@beehaw.org 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Alphabet and Meta enter the chat

[–] MasterCelebrator@feddit.de 13 points 2 years ago
  1. They still kept their Brands for those products. Its still google and not alphabet search.
  2. The fact that most people call These companies Google and Facebook Shows how hard it is to rebrand
[–] ZagTheRaccoon@reddthat.com 27 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Are people really still convincing themselves this is a 5D chess move.

After everything else, are we still doing that?

[–] ConsciousCode@beehaw.org 5 points 2 years ago

Trump has accidentally created an evangelical cult convinced he's the literal "son of man" (aka new messiah) and everything he does/says is ordained by God. Cults of personality shed anyone with even the barest amount of reason and retain only the most deluded.

[–] Poob@lemmy.ca 26 points 2 years ago (4 children)

The only reasonable answer is that Musk is intentionally killing Twitter, which is conspiracy theory levels of dumb.

The only other solution is that the richest person in the world (officially) is this stupid. This is almost harder to believe than a conspiracy to destroy twitter.

[–] ConsciousCode@beehaw.org 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

I wouldn't say stupid, just narcissistic control freak who can't stop touching it. That way it doesn't dismiss him outright. It's a matter of essentializing language - "someone is stupid" isn't so dangerous vs "someone does something stupid" lets you recognize the emperor has no clothes but can still be dangerous. Reality is more complex than "xyz is stupid/evil", and falling into those patterns of thought does a disservice to yourself.

[–] Fauxreigner@beehaw.org 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I have a suspicion that all of the layers of "Elon management" at Tesla and SpaceX have given him the idea that he's a brilliant innovator; he gives them all his outlandish ideas and they get filtered into (normally) reasonable plans, and they guide him down the path they want him to go down while he thinks the good idea is his. And those companies are both doing well, so clearly his style works, at least in his mind.

But then he bought twitter, which didn't have anyone devoted to protecting the company from him, and it's all going to shit.

[–] dope@beehaw.org 2 points 2 years ago

Like my uncle Gump used to say: "Stupid is as stupid does."

[–] rm_dash_r_star@lemm.ee 6 points 2 years ago

Actually after thinking about it, the stuff he's doing to the company is just batshit insane. It has to be intentional. He's on a campaign to kill the company for the tax write-off and because he has some kind of personal beef with it. If he were to just fire everyone and shut down the servers he wouldn't be able to take the write-off. The company has to die a slow death for it to look legit.

[–] Fauxreigner@beehaw.org 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The only other solution is that the richest person in the world (officially) is this stupid. This is almost harder to believe than a conspiracy to destroy twitter.

Why is that hard to believe? The mega-rich are not notably more intelligent than anyone else, they just started decades ago with inherited wealth and got lucky early.

[–] Poob@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Oh this isn't meant to imply that rich people are smarter than anyone else. More hard to believe in that I don't want a man with such immense power and wealth to be absolutely stupid. The obvious best choice is no one having a billion dollars.

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[–] rm_dash_r_star@lemm.ee 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

For sure, either he's destroying it on purpose of he's that stupid, either one is just way out there.

[–] melroy@kbin.melroy.org 22 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The real x logo is of course from Xorg. Never forget that.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 14 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I notice that the x.org website seems to be struggling a bit right now. Are they being hammered by people going to the wrong site?

[–] InFerNo@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago

You are inquiring about the level of intelligence of Twitter users?

[–] storksforlegs@beehaw.org 21 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Seeing the care that went into designing the original logo, only to be replaced with... I keep wanting to call it clipart, but clipart is less lazy than this.

[–] Jamie@jamie.moe 8 points 2 years ago

According to another post, it's an X stolen from a font, and was apparently used in an old podcast. So he just took an X from a font that looked neat and said "good enough"

[–] crow@beehaw.org 20 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This is beyond dumb. Such an iconic logo that was already such a huge part of their brand. Not even a logo that needed to be changed. This will cause major confusion for some old people.

[–] melroy@kbin.melroy.org 2 points 2 years ago

You call me old? Haha just kidding. It's a stupid change indeed. Elon wanted to do the same with PayPal.

[–] mrnomoniker@lemmy.studio 13 points 2 years ago

So, if there's no more bird, then we shouldn't call them "tweets." What should they be called now? X-cretions?

[–] Crakila@kbin.social 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This is just proverbial middle finger from Elon to the PayPal shareholders because he couldn't get his way, now he is in a position where he can do this and no shareholder can criticise him for doing so.
The brand 'X' doesn't have any meaning behind it. 'M' maybe so but that would be a stretch.

[–] Banzai51@midwest.social 11 points 2 years ago

Between going back to X and the graphics on the redesign, it is pretty obvious he's stuck in the 90s. Twitter is his midlife crisis.

[–] electromage@lemm.ee 5 points 2 years ago

Is that a Norwegian Blue? Lovely plumage.

[–] thingsiplay@kbin.social 4 points 2 years ago

@mastermind White X on a black background. It couldn't have less character and personality. The branding wasn't the issue with Twitter. Let's recap: Twitter is struggling, Elon buys Twitter, makes it a worse platform for users, introduces authentication by payment, restricts the access to the platform, and then changes the only good thing about Twitter, the branding.

[–] Adonnus@beehaw.org 4 points 2 years ago

Bird logo dead just like birds dying in heaps in real life

[–] skellener@kbin.social 3 points 2 years ago

Enshittification continues…

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