Member-only storyNeel DozomeFollowUX Collective--Share“What’s in a name?” Juliet asks in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”Tell that to the Artist who was formerly known as Prince. I do not refer to the monarch of the United Kingdom, King Charles III. Instead, I speak of when the American singer and performer announced that they would prefer to go by either a symbol, ‘The Artist Formerly Known As Prince’ or simply, ‘The Artist’. After all, in their own words from Purple Rain, they never wanted to just be our weekend lover. Turns out, other than wanting to be a friend, what they really wanted was to be a symbol and escape their evil music label.faroutmagazine.co.ukTaking a page out of The Artist’s book, Elon Musk decided to change the name of Twitter to X. Justifying this change, he wrote on Twitter/X:Twitter was acquired by X Corp both to ensure freedom of speech and as an accelerant for X, the everything app. This is not simply a company renaming itself, but doing the same thing. The Twitter name made sense when it was just 140 character messages going back and forth — like birds tweeting — but now you can post almost anything, including several hours of video. In the months to come, we will add comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world. The Twitter name does not make sense in that context, so we must bid adieu to the bird.Elon Musk, through intrepid research and much pondering I was forced to conclude, possesses a fondness for the letter X. This interest can be traced back to 1999 when he founded, along with Harris Fricker, Christopher Payne, and Ed Ho a financial start-up called X.com. In 2000, X merged with competitor Confinity. In 2001, the merged company changed its name to PayPal after its merger with a company co-founded by Peter Thiel and Max Levchin. Musk would eventually leave the firm in part, reports suggest, because he wanted the company’s name to remain X.com.----UX CollectiveNotes of a Indian-origin mixed media artist, cartoonist and zine maker.Neel DozomeinUX Collective--1Christine VallaureinUX Collective--6Matej LatininUX Collective--17Neel DozomeinUX Collective--14Katie CooperinUX Collective--9Johanna JagowinBootcamp--Mirijam Missbichler--202Roger Attrill--Stephanie SmithinWise Design--2Andrea Radojicic--18HelpStatusWritersBlogCareersPrivacyTermsAboutText to speechTeams