X Gon' Give It To Ya

0:00I think it's tradition around here for us to just kind of one episode means tradition. Yeah, we've done it once before. We Heart NYC. Who could forget? I know there's no good chant now. X, X, X. X, X, X. Triple X? Yeah. I mean, there is that Danny Brown song. It's true. That Danny Brown album, that is. Sorry. Triple X, which is a banger. Also, Fast and the Furious, right? X, yeah. 10? 10, right? I mean, X is probably the coolest looking letter. I got one on my name. Wow. Yeah. Lucky. I've always felt pretty lucky about that. I think it's sick. In grade school, I knew an Alex, and he had two Xs.

0:41So we called him. He was on my baseball team, so we called him Alex XX. That's so sick. What a fucking legend. Why did he have two Xs? His parents were ballers, I guess. That is sick. We can undeniably say that X is the coolest letter in the alphabet. I think there's no argument. Yeah, you can make it like this. Oh, 100%. Remember that? DX? Yeah, DX. yeah absolutely damn i should have worn my dx shirt today there's there's no denying it i think a z is probably number two for me x yeah nowhere nowhere near as cool as x though what other letter remember that gatorade commercial for the x factor yeah they're all walking out like this like don't dante hall is like yeah you know one of their sickest commercials ever absolutely yeah everything cool begins with x yeah it just sounds badass yeah it's just like it's got a fucking attitude to it a swagger yeah generation x x is cool ecstasy the drop yeah yeah yeah yeah x-ray vision sick xerox paper that's just cool this bit is becoming less sick no i know i know cut before this the lame part yeah just do the good part okay yeah

1:59three two one kevin how are you buddy good to see you yeah you're looking a little bit lower today or is there are you in a different seat i know you're in the same seat your posture is typically pretty good i actually noticed that the other night when we were having drinks um i'm I'm trying to correct course. I don't want to. No, I was sitting next to you and I was like slumped over and you were like fully, you know, sort of sitting with good posture. I'm trying. Yeah. I'm traditionally horrible posture. I'm going to try too. And it's not just so that everyone on YouTube can see my sick little Wayne shirt.

2:34Yeah. I think the problem with our, I mean, it is a very sick shirt, Alex. Thank you. Thank you. Show it again to the camera. I wore it specifically today so that I would be on camera. I know. I've heard a lot about this shirt. I know. It lives up to all the hype. Thank you. Thank you. All the printing on the collar. Yeah, it's an insane shirt. It's an insane shirt. So should I stand up? That would be a first in podcast history. Yeah, do it. All right, here you go. The back is awesome. Wow. I know. That's pretty crazy. The block is hot. It's a feat in t-shirt printing for sure. I know. I wonder what it looks like on a medium shirt.

3:11I think it looks insane. Do you think they have different size prints? That's a good point. Yeah. When you typically get a shirt that has so much printing, on a large, it looks significantly less cool than a small. Yeah. Well, shout out to them for sizing it. Whoever prints the shirt is killing it. Kevin, how was your weekend? It was good. I met up with some friends to watch the Women's World Cup. Okay. We did it very close to Barclays Center. Okay. And it was the same night as the Drake concert. Oh. So we were catching the pre-Drake drinks at the bar. a lot of horrendous looking bozos and then a lot of I don't know I don't know a lot of like Long Island guys what fuck you what Long Island guys oh dude it was like Long Island guy fucking central at the Irish sports bar I was in I take offense of this Long Island guy oh dude it's just littered with long island guys it was hilarious and like you can tell a long island guy in brooklyn like he's wearing maybe like the t-shirt will be like vaguely like military inspired military long yeah i mean everybody was wearing like supporting the troops yeah everyone's wearing like cool sneakers okay um pants of the skinny variety pants oh non-baggies so yeah not skinny jeans but like i know it was like a slimmer cut chino or like you know you're painting a picture for me and i'm starting to and this is why i can tell they're from long island because they're a little bit behind the times okay it was just kind of a sight to see yeah and i was for a second i was like i should go up to barcliffe center and try to pick up some bootleg drake t-shirts great call um but i didn't because i just didn't i didn't want to deal i didn't want to deal with that crowd like i it was too intense the crowd would have been crazy like i kind of want to see that show i don't want to pay money for it but i really wish someone just gave me tickets it does look pretty sick have you seen some of the footage online yeah the sperm i love the sperm i the thing i think actually is the sickest to me is that he walks in like a boxer from like the side of the sort of crowd and each night he walks in with like a crew and he had like aaron judge and uh Giancarlo Stanton from the Yankees.

5:31He didn't bring out Francisco Lindor and Peter Alonso. Yeah, unfortunately, they didn't make it to the crew. But no, I think that's actually pretty dope to walk in like a boxer. There's no argument that in terms of walk-in entrances, boxing fights or UFC fights, that's the sickest walk-in in all of sports. For sure. There's nothing that compares. Like the tunnel or baseball walk-up sign. I don't know. I think nothing gets me more fired up than seeing, you know, guns and roses just blast and welcome to the jungle. For what? The Bengals. Oh, you mean football? No. They got the fucking steam. They got the flames.

6:07No. It's crazy. I would argue that is cool, definitely. Like, or the Ravens, you know, when they started playing like that, you know. No, the Ravens suck, dude. But I'm just saying, like, intros, I think they started some of the, like, crazy sort of football runouts. Yeah, they are really sick. I think those are very cool. I don't know, man. And like when I used to, I don't watch a ton of UFC, but like Chris Weidman from Baldwin, Long Island zone. And he would come out to won't back down. And it's just like with the American flag over his back. Like that is undeniably some like to me, the coolest thing in sports.

6:38Spoken like a true Long Island guy. I know Long Island guy. I was actually on Long Island for the entirety of the weekend. So I was a ton of Long Island guys. And yeah, no, I did see a lot of Trump flags. So, listen, Long Island isn't all full of cool guys and hip graphics designers. Probably the same guys going to the Drake concert. Those are probably some of the same Drake guys. I mean, like, but yeah, I don't like this discrimination, Kevin. I don't like it one day. I was out on Long Island, but I was around the National Labs. So, it was like the fucking nerds of Long Island. And they were all very nice.

7:12So, talk to me about this pickle sandwich because I saw you post it online. Was that on Long Island? Yeah, on Long Island. That's a Long Island thing? I hit a freaking lick after... I went out to Long Island on Saturday morning to go mountain biking with my buddy who's studying at the National... Or doing some shit at the National Labs or whatever the fuck is out there. Okay. I have no idea what that is, but... Bunch of nerds. Nerds. That sounds like nerds. Okay, cool. Anyway, after this arduous bike ride... Not too long. Where? I mean, we went like 17... I drove out there and then we did like a trail.

7:44Okay. So it was a bit tough. Okay. So after the bike ride, we went to this deli in Yapank. Do you know how to say that? I've never heard that word. Yapank. Y-A-P-H-A-N-K. We went to the Yapank deli, and I got a turkey club on a fucking pickle. Sheesh. So pickle's a little hollowed out. I feel like I've seen this online but never had one ever. It's exactly that. You see it online. You're like, damn, I want to try that. I mean, I'm a pickle fiend, so I'm getting this fucking sandwich. So me and my friends put that turkey club on the pickle and like a roast beef on a roll. You know, we went halfsies on both.

8:23It was delicious. I might do the full thing next time. I loved it. Halvesies. That's something Drake would say. Yeah, Drake. Drake the type of guy to go halvesies on a sandwich. Exactly. And then not only did I get a pickle sandwich there, I had a Tropical Punch Prime with no caffeine. I had the sports drink because I needed to replenish some of the electrolytes in my system. That's right. You were biking. Let me tell you, that shit was kind of fucked up. It was so good. Really? It was that good? Yeah, dude. It tasted like when they make Gatorade at camp or when you're playing sports. Like Fruit Punch in a giant - They use the powder and they put too much powder in.

9:02Oh, yeah. Of course. So it's really concentrated and it tastes so good. Yeah. That's what it tastes like. Damn. That sounds pretty good. I know you're a Fruit Punch guy. I remember we talked about this. You're the type of guy that gets the fruit. No fruit punch on the lips. No fruit punch on my lips this time. But you loved it. Yeah. You loved it. The red was great. Would you repeat purchase? I mean, I don't think so because here's the thing. You don't want to be seen with one. No, no. It was one gram of sugar and 25 calories and it just doesn't add up. You're questioning the math there. What is in this drink to make it so sweet and tasty but not bad for you?

9:37You know, I'm a man of science. Yeah. The math ain't mathin'. Yeah, I would hypothesize that that shit that's making it taste so good is probably not good for you. You might be right there, Kevin. I think you're on to something here. But I will say the appeal and the packaging and the experience of getting a Prime, pretty sick. It tastes really good. I feel like that was a Prime location to try a Prime as well. Oh, yeah. Can I tell you something? Yeah, you were so far out on Long Island. You were in Brookhaven, Patchogue land. That's honestly so far deep out on the island. I was in Montauk, which is the end of Long Island.

10:17They call it the end. And you were closer to me than you were closer to Brooklyn or even Oceanside, where I'm from. You were deep out there on Long Island. Yeah. That's where my buddy is. Well, then you got a real Long Island experience there. You went to Long Island Deli. You got a Long Island sandwich. I went to Walmart. You went to Walmart. Yeah. Especially out there, Kevin. And that's where deep Trump flags fly. I mean, I don't know. I don't, I couldn't really tell. There wasn't a lot of like political signage there. But that's, you're, you were, you weren't in like fake Long Island. You were in, you were outside.

10:54I picked up some fucking fast shades at Walmart that I'm very excited about. I saw you rocking them in the studio. You look super fast. They're pretty tight. I was, I was, I was stoked. They had, they had some knockoff Oakley M frames that I was maybe going to go back for next time. But, you know, we'll see. I'm going back this weekend. I love it. You're going back. You have more biking. We love Long Island. Yeah, I'm going to do a little bike and beach day. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Bike and beach day. I will say I was out, as I mentioned, on Long Island as well in Montauk. I've been going for 16 summers with the wifey.

11:26Wow. That's where we started our relationship. And, yeah, it is the best of Long Island. Honestly, I think it's a little sleepy beach town. And it rules. Like it's got incredible beaches, great restaurants, and it's gotten a little crazy over the 16 years. Yeah, I was going to say, can you technically call it sleepy now that it is what it is? There are still parts of it. I mean, listen, on a Saturday night, it's insane. Like it's like. Yeah, I saw you were seeing a DJ. A rapper. Yeah. Well, the Surf Lodge. Chainsmokers. The Surf Lodge has become, it was a hotel that I used to go to. And 15 years ago, it was a bit of a just like surf lodge, like a surf hotel with cool vibes.

12:10And now it's turned into a legit concert venue, like the Chainsmokers or like Kid Leroy is performing there next week. It's like gone fully to like venue. I think there you see the most Long Island guys, you know, in the history. But they're actually kind of swagged out Long Island guys. But there's just a lot of them. And it's a listen. There's a lot of Long Island bros. And here's the thing. 16 years ago, Kevin. I was just a young Long Island bro out there. And yeah, it's gotten a little, look how far I've come. But it's a beautiful town. Eat some delicious lobster rolls. Drank a couple Montauk brews.

12:45See some beautiful sunsets. Got a little bit of a sunburn. That's how you know you're living life. Oh, yeah. That's the good stuff. I even read a book. You know, things. Did you read the Drake book? The poetry book? Yeah. Titles ruin everything, man. You got to read it. No, I was reading. A book full of Instagram captions. Yeah. Rap Capital by Joe Cascarelli. And yeah, for three days, the life outside did not exist. And now I'm back, baby. Except for X. You had your finger on the pulse with X. So there was one thing that did happen while I was out. And that was Saturday night into Sunday morning.

13:22And growing up, Kevin, I was the son of a dentist. And I would go on vacation sometimes. And my dad would get a buzz on his beeper. and he'd be like god damn it you know someone cracked a molar or some shit and he'd be like you know have to like deal with that for a second that's how i felt when i saw this uh twitter x situation i was like come on man you know i take i take you know one three-day you know weekend a year and the biggest story in the world's got you know has to come out and that's what happened the biggest story in the world and i believe that i love when this happens you know first and foremost, I have to say, unlike my father, who would be, you know, obviously not enjoying the fact that someone cracked a molar and it sort of ruined his vacation.

14:05I love when every single person on the planet is talking about branding. Like, yeah, this is why the show exists. We want to have to break down the stories and design and branding, etc. And that is sometimes we've got slow weeks. Sometimes, you know, Skittles launches a mustard flavor or some shit, you know, and we We talk about that stuff, and it's interesting. But, you know, sometimes, more so now than ever, there's a story that goes from the design world, and it's something that jumps out of our little community. And I could call my mom right now and be like, hey, mom, did you see X, Elon Musk?

14:42And she'd be like, oh, yeah. Wow, your mom's tapped in. No, I think this is that big of a story. Like when I was reading some of the articles this morning in preparation for this blockbuster pod, you know, it's every news source in America and worldwide. This is a worldwide story. I think this is the biggest story in the world. It probably will fade out. You know, this was Barbie's weekend. Yeah, this was Barbie's weekend. You saw it. I saw it last night. Last night? Yeah. We'll talk about it next week because I'll see it by the time next week's pod comes around. So thanks for doing your service, though, for Barbie and the marketing.

15:14Yeah. I think yeah first off I was reading a book and like I said I was this this is a you know kind of it's a blessing and a curse remember the We Heart NYC came out while you were on vacation I know and I was like Kevin get back here we just got to take more vacations that's true when we take vacation big story happened I'll do my part thank you I'll join you I'll be vacationing and if you didn't hear and live under a rock I guess it's probably we should set it up here so So Elon Musk bought Twitter. Do you remember that, Kevin? I do remember that. And since then, that's been about, what, two years ago, a year ago?

15:51Who could say? I don't know. He's been making a ton of seemingly brash moves. He started by firing most of the original staff. Swag. Swag. He created something called Twitter Blue. Swag. He created this sort of new paid verification program. Swag. You could buy a blue checkmark. And then remember, like, people were tweeting from seemingly verified accounts saying things that the verified companies or famous people would never say causing a whole bunch of chaos. Remember that? Yeah, that was great. He introduced a tweet limit. That happened like two weeks ago or three weeks ago. And all of this is, you know, what we've come to expect from Twitter and Elon Musk is basically he's a chaos agent.

16:35Yeah. He's an agent of chaos. and you know what those type of people do you know what chaos agents do Kevin they cause chaos wow and I think there really wasn't much left for him to do but to do what he did on Saturday which is burn down the brand basically the brand that we used to know which was called Twitter it had a blue logo in the shape of a bird and then on Saturday night Elon tweeted that quote quote, we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and gradually all of the birds. And there were a bunch of other tweets. He kind of asked for people to submit logos. And it seemed as though people submitted logos and he picked one.

17:21And then it was like, tomorrow, by Monday, this will be the new brand. Yeah. If you want a good laugh, I'll link the thread of the ask for logos in the podcast description. But if you want to go laugh, go through there and just look at what people submitted. You'll see some of the worst, most outdated design you'll ever see. I will say it's not every day that you see a company with this much traction, engagement, or sort of notoriety. The logo's on the front of millions of businesses. There's so much packaging out there that says, follow us on Twitter with the bird. And there's so many websites, and there's so many businesses that have stickers on the front.

18:01Like this is a pretty big move, not just for Twitter, the brand itself and the company itself, but for like industry at large. And so everywhere, you know, completely out of nowhere, seemingly to kill this brand is major, major news. And, you know, in some ways it is somewhat what we've come to expect from Elon Musk. But like, I do think this is like arguably the most this is one of the bigger sort of initiatives that he's done. Like since since he's taken control of Twitter, he's made subtle, you know, incremental changes overall to the platform. But for the most part, the platform has looked and and worked the same since he since he took it over.

18:46And so this isn't a brand refresh. This isn't like an evolution. You know, like we say, like, you know, from evolution to revolution. This is like, this is full revolution. This is burn it down. And this is brand massacre. This is a brand murder. You're calling Elon Musk a revolutionary. I mean, in some ways, yes. And people are outraged. How could he do this? Why would he do this? you know people immediately say this is the worst rebrand in the history of the planet earth you know and i think it causes immediate uh tension uh chaos and just a million articles a million think pieces and i have to think that's exactly how he wants it probably yeah and so i was a little bit like i said on vacation so i was a little outside of the sort of eco chamber of the internet, something, you know, when you're on a beach, you know, you throw your phone in your bag and stuff and you like actually live life and you're kind of, I took the plug of internet out of my arm and sort of was actually enjoying the water and sand and sun and things that this beautiful earth of ours.

20:01Look at you, Alex, touching the proverbial grass. I know. It was a beautiful thing. So I was able to kind of sit outside of it too. I wasn't like, you know because i think immediate reaction culture is like we everyone's got to have a point of view everyone's got to jump in everyone's got to join the conversation ironically on twitter or the the the platform formerly known as twitter and talk about this and it was um you know i think it was a unanimous this is awful this is garbage this is terrible this is you know murder and this is like the worst worst decision so well i think even if it was like a well thought out planned like redesign of this logo or rebrand yeah people would have hated it because they just want to hate everything that he does so that's my first kind of thought here is that elon musk is a bad guy right like i think he has uh questionable personal politics i think he's done some pretty awful things to employees.

20:59He has a long litany of things that make Elon Musk not necessarily a good person and potentially a judge of character or something that he's... It's hard to defend him really in any way. As we talked about with the Threads story, which we'll get into a second, but Elon Musk was such a bad guy that he made Mark Zuckerberg, another bad person, seem like a good person. I think that was the general reaction there. Yeah, I mean, Elon Musk is a confirmed douchebag. That's right. And all the things he said, all the ways in which he's used Twitter over the past two years have really unlocked and uncovered that stone of how truly bad he is.

21:41Yeah, he's just a troll. He's an internet troll. And you're right. I remember I watched a documentary and I was like, he's misunderstood. He's not misunderstood. You were riding him a little bit. For a second, I was like, maybe. When he hosted SNL like three years ago or two years ago, whenever. Yeah. I mean, I think we didn't know that much about him, but maybe I didn't pay that much attention to him, really, because I don't drive a Tesla and I don't really care about him that much. I don't know. I'm not into space. I'm not really that tapped into Elon Musk culture. I'm not an Elon Musk fanboy.

22:13There are people out there whose personality is like, I love this guy. He's a genius. I think he does. That's the guy who designed the logo, Sawyer. That dude is the biggest Elon Musk dick writer of all time. And there's millions of them. Like there's lots of people like that. There are people that think he's an absolute genius and that everything he does is gold. Like that is a fact that there are lots of people out there. And so I have come to sort of feel personally that he's a piece of shit. And I think you do as well. And I think that has probably been the majority of people or a lot of people think he's a piece of shit.

22:47And so I do think, though, and I have no reason to like defend him in any way. But I do think to a certain extent people are overreacting to the design and rebrand and the merit of this branding decision because of who it was done by. And I think we need to somewhat discuss that. Yeah, he's just playing into the outrage cycle. Exactly. And I believe to your point that like because this was the decision that should have taken months to do or years to do and this should have been designed by design professionals and therefore it would have made it more quote unquote legitimate. And because it seems like it was done on a whim, it was sort of done haphazardly and has not been done by an agency that you can – that has done other branding work, then therefore it is not – therefore it's terrible.

23:37and I think I believe for the most part that people cannot separate the art from the artist like I think that's very fair like I don't think you should say well they can when it's convenient to them that's true it's like you know um you know I I I if you really like something then sometimes it's hard but like I think you know when Kanye came out and said he was pro-Hitler like that affects Yeezy's brand like that that is you know you can't be like but the shoes man they're cool shoes it's like unfortunately the person that makes those shoes just said some really awful things and so therefore you have like the two come hand in hand especially when a brand is so so closely linked to its founder and i think twitter has now become elon musk and so i think because did you just dead name twitter bro that's crazy but i just think it's it's become this thing It's like that Elon Musk and the Twitter brand, like you can't separate the two of those things.

24:35And I don't think you should. But I think what I'm seeing a lot of people saying that this is bad design or lazy design or this is just a letter from a typeface and trying to say that this is bad design. And I think that's mostly because of who is behind it and not necessarily because of the actual merits of the identity. Actually, it's not a letter from a typeface. it's a logo from a failed podcast that a Tesla or some sort of like Elon Musk universe employee created and resubmitted. So upcycled logo, that's a plus. Sustainability, we love that shit. Yeah, yeah. Green planet for sure. I think, right?

25:16So Elon Musk has been trying to make X like a thing for for a long time he's owned that domain for 20 years i think i read and then he's got spacex he's got the like tesla model x he named his son x like x is clearly something that he's been trying to uh you know that's that's part of his brand so again like the the the separation between elon musk like and this new x brand it's hard to do because it's so seemingly tied to him as a person. But as a thought experiment, Kevin, I'd like to sort of play out an alternative scenario. Let's say instead of Elon Musk buying Twitter, it was someone more beloved.

25:58Say The Rock bought Twitter and says, this place is a shithole. It's a toxic environment. We need to make changes and we need to clean this place up and we need a new chapter, right? Yeah. The Rock also likes the letter X because he bought the XFL. Exactly. That's why I thought of The Rock for this fake alternative here. So say he wants to buy Twitter and he also bought the XFL and say he wants to make Twitter a place where it's not just known for messaging or social feed, but it's known for payments and marketplace and video. and he wants to sort of move it into the future, much like Meta. And so how like Facebook rebranded to Meta to make it a sort of bigger platform to sort of be the house sort of parent brand of a bunch of sort of more innovative technology companies in the future.

26:45So say The Rock does that, changes the brand and he's like, hey, we need to sort of rid the past of this Twitter brand that everyone, you know, truly thinks is toxic and a bad place. He hires Pentagram or Collins or something like that and says, we're removing all the birds. We're getting rid of the old Twitter universe and we're just going with X. And he introduces the exact same logo. Are people saying the same thing about the design? I don't know. I don't really care. That's what I think. So for me, I think that people are just so, so angry and hateful of Elon Musk, again, for good reason, that they're seeing this in a way that maybe – that potentially they're not looking at the opposite side, which is x.com is pretty insane as a website, like just one letter.

27:43Yeah, watch out with that search history. Be careful typing X into your browser, fellas. Arguably the sickest letter in the alphabet, as we discussed. But, you know, that's... The best websites start with X. The best websites start with X. And it's futuristic. It's exciting. And ultimately, it marks a new chapter moving forward that Twitter, as it was, is moving forward. And I think that's what branding, in many cases, is meant to do, or rebrands, in this case, like, meant to change people's perception. and move it from one thing to another. And I think they're moving it away from the Twitter that we once loved and moving it towards this new company, which he bought and has seemingly new plans for.

28:29Yeah. I mean, did he really think about... I don't think he really thought about the language of using X. What are you going to call these things? What are you going to call these posts? Are you going to call them Xs? Yeats. Yeats? Yeah. Really? That's what I saw. X-E-E-T. Z. Z. Z. Z. Z. Z. Z. Horrible fucking nomenclature. And on the website, as it is now, it still says, tweet your reply. Yeah. What is it going to say? Yeah. Z your reply? Yes. It's just like trying to make X happen, and it's just not that cool. It's a fine name. It's a good website. X.com's sick, but it doesn't work. And I think that's ultimately part of why this is being so wildly sort of unifyingly hated across the internet, in a design community.

29:13It's because that's not how branding works. Branding is the story and the sort of ecosystem, to your point, of how it exists in the world. And that story about The Rock, they said, didn't happen. Instead, it was a Saturday night, just flipped on. And it does seem like it was a decision made on a whim without a ton of thought or really any communication or rollout of what it is. This does make me like this project a lot, actually. My opinion on this project is i've convinced you that it's good it's changing rapidly wow so this is the point i wanted to come in here today and talk about it and not just jump on the bandwagon i want to be a free thinker kevin and just kind of think about it like think about it for both sides like honestly like i i don't i i don't think it's the best thing on the planet earth obviously there's a lot of holes there's a lot of problems but i also don't think it's like i just don't think it's that black and white i don't think it's like it's literally the logo is literally black and it is black and white you bring up a good point but like it is actually for everyone to say it's awful it's terrible everyone think pieces after being in the world for 48 hours it's like again i'm still questioning it and seeing how this thing rolls out in time seeing how it's being used and to your point that will be ultimately the decision here is is this is this a success or not is not made because a bunch of people online think it's bad or think it's just a letter from a typeface you know many logos are just letters from typefaces a lot of them so many of them that's like the first move yeah that's literally what a lot of design is uh breaking news so but i think i have a cool letter pick a cool letter or like yeah like you know i don't think the letter's all that cool to be honest it's not that cool but it's it's it's it's distinct right a lot of logos are regular letter, regular letter, distinct letter, regular letter, regular letter.