First the dog, now the W: Our author has an inkling of what the changes on Twitter are all about. You have to know what Titter means.
Elon Musk used a trick to remove the W from Twitter, at least on the company sign of the Twitter headquarters in San Francisco.Jim Watson/AFP
It’s been less than a week since Elon Musk replaced the bird with a dog. We’re talking about his company Twitter and its previous trademark, the iconic blue bird, which he replaced with the face of a Shiba-Inu dog, thereby astounding the entire Twitter world – and certainly every manager who has ever dealt with corporate identity has employed.
Even the “Tagesschau” reported it. The Guardian was so taken aback they thought it was a belated April Fool’s joke. The bird has been back for a few days, but now there’s another change: The W in the caption “@twitter ” has been removed from the company signboard at Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco. Twitter became “Titter”.
The fact that this goes back to Elon Musk himself was made clear by his tweet on Easter Monday morning, translated here: “Our landlord at the San Francisco headquarters says that we are legally obliged to leave the company sign like this and not remove the W allowed, so we painted it the color of the background. Problem solved.” As proof, he posts a photo taken at night, on which the W can actually only be seen dimly.
Our landlord at SF HQ says we’re legally required to keep sign as Twitter & cannot remove “w”, so we painted it background color. Problem solved! pic.twitter.com/1iFjccTbUq
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 10, 2023
As early as April 2022, Musk conducted a poll via Twitter – called the Twitter Poll – about the W, asking whether the letter should be removed. Hundreds of thousands attended before it was erased.
What is the connection between the changes at Twitter
Are these all impulsive, even childish decisions, as some comment on Elon Musk’s latest move? Or is there perhaps a connection between the changes?
You have to know: The Shiba-Inu is also the face of a cryptocurrency, the Dogecoin. Although Dogecoin is also based on blockchain technology, it never wanted to compete with Bitcoin, but was intended as a fun currency. Dogecoin actually just wanted to make fun of Bitcoin. Maybe you could say: It was about laughter. What does this have to do with the W in Twitter? Well, according to the Langenscheidt dictionary, the noun “titter” means nothing more than giggles. Maybe Elon Musk just has a lot of humor.
Maybe Elon Musk is now laughing at those who invested in Dogecoin and lost money because as a Twitter user with more than 134 million followers, he kept posting a positive tweet about Dogecoin, which drove the Dogecoin price up until he then fell again. Frustrated investors are now taking legal action against Elon Musk.