• redcalcium@lemmy.institute
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    352
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    According to Hwang, the company now formerly known as Twitter did offer “an alternative handle with the history of the @x account” so that his original account, complete with its posts and followers, could live on and continue to be used.

    What short, catchy username did Musk’s company change Hwang’s handle to? @x12345678998765.

    You can’t make this shit up. God damn!

    • like47ninjas@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      1 year ago

      That is absolutely hilarious. They should’ve offered him @twitter in exchange, it would only be fair…

    • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      7
      ·
      1 year ago

      Let’s be real now. That name is temporary until he chooses his new one. Read the whole article. It’s rediculous enough without making things seem even worse.

      • redcalcium@lemmy.institute
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        27
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        But look at that username. It definitely not randomly generated. Someone at Twitter pick that new name. They just give someone with the shortest username possible (1 character) the longest possible username (15 characters), and they do so by pressing the number row back and forth until they hit the username characters size limit. If it’s not a mockery then I don’t know what is.

        • jerkface@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          It’s not mockery, it is the logical thing to do. They don’t want to allocate a username a person would actually want, so naturally they pick the longest possible username, with arbitrary and meaningless contents. Would you have been happier if it was @xloremipsumdolo? @xtemporaryusern? Like what was the right thing for the technician who had to pick the name to do, in your mind?

          • redcalcium@lemmy.institute
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            I thought long and hard about this, and you’re right. If it were me, no matter what the new username is, I’m still going to be mad. But I feel like I’ll be less mad (just a little bit less) if they select a completely random username (with sensible length, like 8 characters or less), indicating it’s chosen by an impartial random number generator instead of chosen by someone who in my mind is messing with me (image of Elon Musk laughing at me coming in my mind).