Post #4043166

2026-07-23 18:19 UTC

It slots right into another irrational faith very common in the #tech sector: faith in short catchy user-names. Geeklords immediately pounce on all possible short words and abbreviations and it's sometimes possible to reap an absurd quantity of effort-free profit merely by grabbing a short user-name early and then waiting for someone else, someone desperate enough to pay lots of money to get that short name for themselves. Insofar as Elon Musk has a personality, it's this. He's a strangely durable relic of 1990s technology grifting, having conceived his obsession with X back when registering short dot-com names was still a license to print money. (cont'd)

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@mxchara@seattle.pink 2026-07-23 18:26

X invokes Christian iconography, being itself a Cross and also the Greek letter chi (chi for Christ). The letter 'X' geometrically defines a point by the intersection of two lines and that also plays into Christian symbolism, for the Christians believe the Incarnation to be the most important point event in human history. "X marks the spot" is a symbol for buried treasure, and #marketing likes "X" as a symbol for ineffable and intangible qualities of greatness in something, the "X factor" that Elon Musk purportedly possesses. But it was actually a mistake for Musk to think that he could sum up himself and his "wealth creation" with the single letter 'X'. It's too powerful a symbol for him to handle, too concentrated, too rich with meanings that mean nothing to the singularly dull-witted Elon Musk. (cont'd)

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