The letter has its obvious appeal. X is a flexible shape — one of the few capital letters that remains symmetrical even when bisected vertically or horizontally (others: H, O, and I). It’s easy to read no matter how you flip it. It signaled to stop. A marker on the map. A movie too outrageous to rate. It’s the stuff of revolutionaries (Malcolm X) and puns (X, band). It symbolizes a kiss, and represents an unknown quantity in mathematics. XXX is porn — the Internet’s first true currency. X could be the hidden plot of “The X-Files,” or shorthand for ecstasy, a drug popular with racers in the ’90s.
On Monday, Twitter revealed its new name and with it a new logo. development of new brand has the same turbulent energy that Elon Musk has brought to every step of the way since he bought Twitter last October. As users on X (formerly half-affectionately called the “bird app”) adjust to their new surroundings, there are many questions to ponder. For example: If it was no longer called Twitter, would posts still be tweets? What is the sound of an X flying through silicon? A zing? And why did Mr. Musk choose it?
His age may have something to do with it. In the 1990s, X reigned supreme, after Douglas Coupland’s 1991 novel “Generation X: Stories of an Accelerated Culture” instilled the vocabulary.
“We were in our 20s when we were called Gen X. So maybe X sounds good to us, because it’s ingrained in our brains,” said Anthony Sperduti, 50, founder of branding studio Mythology. At 52, Mr. Musk falls into that demographic.
For marketing purposes in the 1990s, X had a certain appeal. It offers a denial of power – you can imagine Bart Simpson with a marker writing an X on his bedroom wall – while also being concurred by mass consumerism. X is a symbol for generic products, so X can be both rebellious and mass-produced.
Big businesses also join the letter as they try to bottle up the decade’s alternative energy. The X Olympics started in 1995, short for “extreme”, a term used to describe sports such as skiing, which was only allowed to participate in the Olympics in 1998. The Xbox video game console was born in 2001.
Musicians and hipsters applied the letter freely when they founded companies. Eli Bonerz and Adam Silverman opened XLARGE (Beastie Boys’ favorite) clothing store in Los Angeles in 1991. Kim Gordon and Daisy von Furth started the clothing brand X-Girl in 1994.
But X has its limitations.
“It has no meaning as an identity,” says Michael Rock, 64, a partner at 2×4, a branding consulting firm based in New York and Beijing, of the new logo. “It has the same meaning as a negation or an annulment. One strikethrough.
However, Gen X is the first generation to have a single-letter name, and even if they don’t like the moniker, they pride themselves on being unidentifiable. In any case, the name stuck. And it seems to have actually been the longest and most enduring in Musk’s mind. (Mr Musk did not respond to a request for comment.)
Indeed, Mr. Musk seems to have something to do with the letter X. He named his rocket company SpaceX, a Tesla the Model X, and one of his children X Æ A-12, or X for short. Musk’s second company, X.com, emerged in X.-still-a-time in 1999 before merging with another company in 2001.
As a single letter, X had little competition in branding until 1998 when Apple introduced a lowercase i in the name of the iMac. Compared to X’s ferocious slash, the optimistic, self-righteous, and cheerfully personified ego — the little dot that resembles a head on top of a pervert, standing body ready to take over the world. You could say, a millennial letter is there to replace the self-defeating X and its latch-locking energy.
By labeling everything he touches with an X, it’s as if Musk is begging the world to remember the early years when he started building his empire. (Not the stereotypical Gen X instinct.)
In a way, Mr. Rock said, “It’s not an option, a pause in the narration will be provided later.” He feels that the actual logo the company puts on the website as a placeholder is not the problem. “Naughty seems to be at the heart of it.”
Mr. Rock likened it to “a motorcycle leather jacket at a Tesla launch,” more like the Xbox or X Games branding than any genuine counterculture use since the 1990s.
“I can imagine it appeals to Elon Musk’s personality as outlandish, edgy, mysterious or outlandish, but it’s like a crippled tech guy,” he said.
Ultimately, if Mr. Musk succeeds in making X the “company of everything” as he wants it to be, the logo won’t matter. And that’s probably the most Gen X result of all.
