Twitter or X? Life without signs of Larry the bird is no longer the same

The nocturnally empowered journalist in me often gets up late in the night to search a hashtag on Twitter, now called 'X' — #TomorrowsPapersToday — to get a sense of the headlines dominating the frontpage of newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic. 

For nearly a month now, I am often left staring at my smartphone in a short-lived moment of cluelessness. I unlock my phone and among the dozens of apps that stare back, the blue-bird logo of X's predecessor Twitter no longer exists. 

Twitter's becoming of 'X'  rings a bell and finally I am able to complete my micro-blogging needs on 'X'. 

Twitter became 'X' in July 2023. With that, its billionaire owner Elon Musk replaced its blue bird logo with an interim fan-made "𝕏" logo.

The erstwhile Twitter bird was actually the company’s second logo and replaced its earlier 'Larry the Bird' logo used between 2010 and 2012. 

The Twitter bird was borne out of Larry's blue silhouette itself. So one did not miss Larry exactly. It felt Larry never left.

But in July 2023, Larry, and almost all signs of him left the microblogging world of internet at a purported whim of the platform's new billionaire owner. 

So for this Delhi-based journalist and millions of others,  the Twitter bird was more than just a logo. 

It also symbolised the prominence of erstwhile Twitter's micro-blogging service, which for many years was the only game in town.

Our posts on the platform were tweets, the sound of a bird.

Several hundred million tweets a day formed the orchestra of the global town-square. 

Some tweets, like that iconic Ellen DeGeneres selfie from the Oscars, became a moment to be drafted in the history of pop culture. (And isn't it ironic that a painting of the Oscar selfie, which arguably lit the selfie culture revolution torch, is among memorabilia that Musk seeks to sell in order to make money for Twitter, I mean X?)
 

The selfie from the Academy Awards 2014 tweeted by Ellen DeGeneres became the most retweeted tweet at the time | X

See, calling the platform Twitter is almost like muscle memory.

For me, it's always going to be Twitter.

Whatever its commercial value, Twitter was the first platform to enable global conversations. Anyone could connect to anyone by tagging their handles.

In a world where facts are no more sacred and comment is still free yet can cost you your life, Twitter became the sounding board of views, political slugfest arena, consumer complaint register, emergency alert notice and much else, all rolled into one. Heck, at one point it was even a terrorist recruitment platform for Islamic State and its ilk.

There were good-bad-ugly sides of this expressionist musical on the global town-square.

Donald Trump's rants, Indian acting legend Amitabh Bachchan's obsessive tweet initial counts (one wonders will he change them with X posts from T-(insert number) earlier. 
 
The tweets we called it. They are now the posts. The expressions with no musical of a tweet.
 

Indian acting legend Amitabh Bachchan garnered fame on social media for his obsessive count of tweets | @SrBachchan/Reuters

Twitter is not the same without tweets.

It'll probably never be the same in future either, as Musk thinks Larry has grown up, and it's time for the bird to leave the nest, so that the billionaire can build the house for his everything app: X.

(Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer.)

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