American billionaire Elon Musk is taking the rebranding of text-based social media platform Twitter seriously and some local personalities are noticing it.
The app, dubbed by the tech entrepreneur as a “digital town square,” has been undergoing drastic changes as of late.
These include its name (from Twitter to X), its tagline (from “It’s what’s happening” to “Blaze your glory”), some features (from “tweets” to “posts,” and its ultimate logo.
Twitter was known for its iconic sky blue bird logo that was first unveiled to the public in 2012, six years after the app was launched by Jack Dorsey and other tech entrepreneurs.
The blue bird was designed by artist Martin Grasser and two other people. Grasser reportedly said he was inspired by a hummingbird beating its wings.
This logo is the one that users see when they go to Twitter’s website and mobile app.
By July 24, a stylized white “X” on a black background had replaced the blue bird on the website.
RELATED: Bird has flown as Musk, Twitter CEO Yaccarino say ‘X’ logo is here | ‘Xvideos’ lands on trending list after Twitter’s ‘X’ rebrand
The change was later implemented in the app logo itself, prompting Twitter users to air their reactions to the now-prominent rebranding initiative.
Among these was “Asia’s Songbird” Regine Velasquez, actress-singer Maris Racal, and Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto.
“Hala, anong nangyari kay Tweeter [Twitter]??? Bakit X na?? Gosh, it will take a long time for me to get used to X’ing people,” Regine exclaimed on Monday, July 31.
She accompanied her post with emojis of a loudly crying face, downcast-face-with sweat, and laughing-with-tears.
Hala anong nangyari kay tweeter??? Bakit X na?? Gosh it will take a long time for me to get used to X’ing people 😭😓😂
— regine alcasid (@reginevalcasid) July 30, 2023
Maris was also unenthusiastic about the recent changes.
“[X] na ‘yung Twitter app ko. Thought [I] was gonna dodge this by not updating,” she wrote on Saturday, July 29. It was accompanied by an upside-down smiling face emoji.
x na yung twitter app ko. thought i was gonna dodge this by not updating. 🙃
— Maris Racal (@MissMarisRacal) August 1, 2023
She also shared that she does not like the platform’s “For You” tab. Previously, Twitter users’ home page showed the “Home” and “Latest” tabs. It now shows “For You” and “Following.”
The change was also implemented when Musk took over Twitter. It was enacted last January.
The “For You” tab mostly shows posts from accounts that the Twitter user does not follow but are recommended to them by the platform’s algorithm.
i dont like this “for you” feature on twitter. like, i wanna see tweets of the people i follow not a bunch of random viral tweets. WHERE are my people? 😭
— Maris Racal (@MissMarisRacal) July 29, 2023
Vico likewise wondered about the changes he had noticed on the platform.
“Anong nangyayari sa Twitter,” he wrote as a follow-up comment to a post he made about Pasig’s graduates of the Alternative Learning System.
The city chief also accompanied his post with emojis of a bird and a face-with-monocle. He likewise inserted a Unicode character resembling the platform’s new logo.
Anong nangyayari sa twitter
🐦 𝕏 🧐
— Vico Sotto (@VicoSotto) July 31, 2023
Twitter to X
Since he acquired the platform, Musk has been radically implementing changes from its appearance to its features.
He previously said he had a vision to turn Twitter into a so-called super app, which reports said was “something akin to China’s WeChat.”
Last April, the tech entrepreneur changed Twitter’s legal name to X Corp.
Musk was also reported to have a “longstanding fascination with the letter X.”
This was reflected as far back as his first startup, X.com. It became PayPal after a merger.
When the billionaire bought Twitter, he reportedly said to biographer Walter Isaacson that was “very excited about finally implementing X.com as it should have been done, using Twitter as an accelerant.”
To further reinforce the rebrand, Musk installed a giant glowing X on top of Twitter’s headquarters. It was taken down shortly after neighbors complained about its intrusive lights.
RELATED: Big X taken down from Twitter roof after San Francisco squabble
