The blue bird will be X-ed out. In comes the 24th letter of the alphabet. Does it matter to fashion?

Will it be the same when we no longer send out a tweet? For the longest time, a tweet is a message, even a short one. A tweet is by itself brief—a monosyllabic locution that even when uttered, is short and quick. It is only one letter longer that the world’s favourite four-letter expletive. But now, tweet—moniker/noun/verb— is too long. It has to be cut, eagerly to just one letter. Elon Musk has decided that Twitter the app is better if it is known as X, a consonant that, on the Internet, is synonym with smut. And the microblogging post sent out on his now-revamped platform is an “X’s”, according Mr Musk, who ardently loves the single letter, yet not opposed to stringing along the superfluous apostrophe S. Very soon your fashion tweets will be fashion X’s. The X’s of Ys? But what about retweets? Re-X’s? And too many of them? Xcesses? Or he who tweets? Xers? Or attachments? X Files?

Mr Musk and chief executive of X, Linda Yaccarino, announced yesterday that the blue bird would be let go. The guy shared that “soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.” To be sure he’s serious about the facetious rebranding, Mr Musk has already officially named his social media app’s parent company X Corp, which is a subsidiary of X Holdings. Okay, X Man, we get you. The Tesla owner has been a fervent admirer of that letter for a long time. There was, we remember, a Tesla car named Model X (not, in case you’re wondering, designed for Professor X!). His outside-earth exploration company is called SpaceX. Heck, even his son with the just-as-weirdly named singer Grimes is called XÆ A-II, pronounced—what else—X. That is, to us, Xcruciating.

To be sure he’s serious about the facetious rebranding, Mr Musk has already officially named his social media app’s parent company X Corp

Just as chirpy Ms Yaccarino Xed (what an unattractive word): “Powered by AI, X will connect us in ways we’re just beginning to imagine.” She went on: “There’s absolutely no limit to this transformation. X will be the platform that can deliver, well… everything”. Something like China‘s WeChat (微信, weixin). Interesting that Chinese tech many in America find worrisome deserves emulation, or served as inspiration. But how would the soon-to-be-everything X continue to serve the fashion community? SOTD has avoided setting up a Twitter account because of how savage the platform can be. It is oftentimes hard to read tweets when they can be so unnecessarily ferocious and unkind. The persistent trolling found on the platform can be dispiriting and downright depressing. Twitter became even less alluring when Mr Musk vouched to relax moderation. Fashion influencers, not so text-inclined, mostly veer towards Instagram and, increasingly, TikTok. Unless you are the loquacious Bryan Boy.

Fashion brands, however, did not always embrace Twitter with the same enthusiasm as politicians, or MAGA fanboys. It isn’t clear how useful Twitter is to brands when they tap the platform to put out the blandest advertising (Chanel, for example). Balenciaga opted out of Twitter in 2022, after Mr Musk acquired the social media platform, whether as an act of disapproval, it didn’t say. Out even earlier was Bottega Veneta in 2021. It has not returned. Even designer Matthieu Blazy is a silent presence (there is an account to his name, but it has no posts). Other important designers such as JW Anderson has a page for his brand, but keeps it empty. Journalists, such as the New York Times’s Vanessa Friedman, remain fairly active, news-breaking users. It is uncertain how the Twitter name change will pan out among fashion brands and folks. Of, if it will spell even bigger success for the soon bird-less social media platform. x

Note: as of this morning, the blue bird is still on the app

Illustration: Just So