Even when Twitter has been overrun by Russian operatives, Nazis and racists, it still felt like a platform on which cool people could and would say cool things. There were always fun people to follow, interesting people saying interesting things, and yes, plenty of sh-tposting. But this week, it definitely feels like everything has just become dreadfully uncool. Perhaps even CRINGE. Perhaps even… pathetic. Elon Musk changed the little blue bird icon of Twitter into the Shiba Inu “doge” icon… from the meme which was popular a decade ago. I cannot even imagine being this embarrassing.

Elon Musk is now using the design of Twitter itself to make hilarious (?) jokes.

On Monday, without warning, the iconic Twitter bird logo above the home button on the social network’s web version changed to the “doge” of the Dogecoin cryptocurrency. (Twitter’s mobile apps weren’t changed.) The doge image (of a Shiba Inu) is part of the logo of the Dogecoin blockchain and cryptocurrency, which was created as a joke in 2013 — to mock other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

By way of explaining the Doge logo change on Twitter, Musk, currently the world’s second-richest individual, posted a tweet Monday that said, “As promised” — with a screenshot of an exchange he had in March 2022 with a Twitter user who goes by @WSBChairman.

After Musk tweeted in March 2022, prior to mounting his eventually successful bid to buy Twitter, “Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy. What should be done?,” @WSBChairman had responded, “just buy twitter… and change the bird logo to a doge.” Musk responded, “Haha that would sickkk.”

What is not meant to be a joke: In June 2022, Musk was on the receiving end of a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York accusing him of engaging in racketeering by promoting Dogecoin. Musk’s legal team filed a motion on Friday, March 31, to have the lawsuit dismissed, per a Reuters report. Among other things, the plaintiffs who sued Musk — seeking an eye-popping $258 billion in damages — pointed to his hosting gig on “SNL,” where on Weekend Update he portrayed a fake financial expert who called Dogecoin a “hustle.”

[From Variety]

People are spinning conspiracies about how Musk tied this stupid doge thing to the dogecoin lawsuit, but I don’t even believe that it’s that deep. I think Musk is simply uncool, embarrassing, cringe and pathetic. There is a rumor that he wanted to do this for April Fool’s Day but that the Twitter engineers left at the company couldn’t get it done on time. It’s still there, probably because no one can figure out how to remove it now.

look, it's the exact same user experience it's always been, except verified and paid accounts are identical, retweets don't say retweets anymore, there's a doge icon we can't get rid of, and the site administers a small but painful shock at random intervals

— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) April 3, 2023

he changed the logo to the doge but couldnt even format it right. look at the pixels at the top of it. come on man pic.twitter.com/5e49LH3kN9

— zach silberberg (@zachsilberberg) April 3, 2023

🚨 BREAKING: Elon Musk facing $258 BILLION racketeering lawsuit for his role in "running a pyramid scheme" to defraud investors with Dogecoin, an unregistered security.https://t.co/x7NHEzbLnt

— LeGate🤠 (@williamlegate) April 3, 2023

Photos courtesy of Backgird, Cover Images.