On July 23, 2023, Elon Musk announced the rebranding of Twitter to a new company, “X Corp.” Musk says he wants to transform the ubiquitous and influential social media platform into in his words an “everything app.”
For commentators who follow the doings of modern technology and tech billionaires, there seem to be two schools of thought on this: It is either a brilliant, far-sighted idea or a likely business catastrophe. I guess we will just have to wait and see.
Whatever happens, I will try to regard it dispassionately, as if I were a social anthropologist rather than a committed user. You see, I don’t speak High Tech. I have never used Twitter or Meta, don’t stream TV or movies, or participated in most of the other ways people use such technology. Not making any judgments, but I personally find this very liberating, as it saves me much time not staring at screens.
I do admit, however, to being interested in Musk’s fascination with the letter X. He founded the online bank X.com back in 1999 and has been working X ever since. He even named his son X AE A-12 Musk while his daughter is Exa Dark Siderael Musk. Well, okay. But, in at least one way, I understand Elon Musk. I too, am drawn to certain letters of the alphabet, and “X” is a graph that is right up there at the top of my list.
Was it the old pirate maps where X marked the buried treasure spot in early adventure books I would read? Was it the discovery of Marvel’s X-Men during the Great Comic Book Era in my younger years? Probably.
It likely wasn’t in the math classes I daydreamed through where I became enamored of the 24th letter of the alphabet. In elementary school I learned the symbol for multiplication is “X,” and in Algebra class, I managed to grasp that “X” stood for the unknown, but that was about as far as I got. The rest of my high school math classes were one big X, to me.
Beyond algebra, “X” has become a general symbol for the unknown. German scientist Rontgen called them “X-rays” to designate this curious radiation as unknown. The X-Files is speculative fiction premised on the idea that government conspiracies are out there involving UFOs — or UAPs as the government now calls them. And according to the civil rights activist Malcolm X, the “X” in his name stands for his true African family name he would never know.
One of my favorite things about “X” is its versatility. A love letter signed “XOXO” means “kisses and hugs.” The magazine Mental Floss speculates that it is possible “…an X is a stylized representation of two mouths kissing, while the “O” represents two arms coming together to complete a hug.” Another plausible explanation is in the Middle Ages when most people could not read or write, an “X” was used both as a signature and as a reference to the Christian cross. After signing with an X, the signee would kiss the document. Thus it became associated with a kiss. I want to believe both explanations. It’s the romantic in me, I guess.
As an avid crossword puzzler, I am aware that very few English words begin with “X.”Also, it is the third least frequently used letter in English after “Q” and “Z.” that makes it even more special, in my mind. And possibly in Elon Musk’s mind, as well.
But who knows? He’s a hard guy to read. Although he did create X Corp this year, 2023, which in Roman numerals is MMXXIII, and this numeral has two Xs. Intriguing.
Norman Knight, a retired Clark-Pleasant Middle School teacher, writes this weekly column for the Daily Journal. Send comments to [email protected].
