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Bye bye, birdie.

Twitter, the text-based social media platform that played an outsized role on society by serving as a digital town square, was killed by its unhinged owner Elon Musk on Sunday. It was 17 years old.

A zombie Twitter, known only as X, reluctantly endures. A warped and disfigured platform, X marches on like a White Walker, an ugly shell of its former self under the command of a loathsome leader.

Whereas Twitter was once a fountain of authoritative information, X is a platform where trolls can pay a small fee to have their ugly content boosted ahead of reputable sources.

X is a platform where identity verification no longer exists and impersonation is only a paid subscription away.

X is a platform where journalists are banned and smeared while the most repellant and dishonest voices are elevated.

X is a platform where the rules are unclear and content moderation is largely an idea of the past.

X is a platform where the most important and consequential decisions are made on a whim and can happen without any warning.

And X is a platform where vital infrastructure is crumbling and the most basic of features often fail to function.

X might resemble Twitter. It might occupy the same address on the internet that Twitter once did. But make no mistake, it is not the same platform it once was — even as recently as nine months ago, when Musk took over, quickly decapitated the former leadership, and threw the company into chaos and turmoil.

That platform has ceased to be. It arguably died some time ago, before it was announced to the public by way of a sudden and disorderly rebranding.

In many ways, Musk has done to Twitter what Donald Trump did to the Republican Party: wholly remade it in his own image. At least, with Musk, the deformed entity is getting a different name, one that allows the public to perhaps separate Twitter from what Musk has transformed it into.

X will, of course, inherit all of Twitter's business problems. Musk is the entity that has proven toxic to advertisers and much of the user base, not the widely recognized bird logo. How the billionaire ultimately turns that ship around is unclear, particularly as he faces new competition from Mark Zuckerberg and Threads.

So far, however, there is little hope Musk will be able to successfully steer the ship out of iceberg-ridden waters. He is, after all, the captain who led the ship into them — all while manically laughing alongside his inner circle while standing at the wheel.

———  BELOW THE FOLD  ———

'Barbenheimer' Blowout: The theater industry cannot be more thrilled. The "Barbenheimer" phenomenon that washed over the U.S. in recent days led to massive totals at the box office, with Greta Gerwig's "Barbie" collecting a staggering $162 million at the domestic box office and Christopher Nolan's R-rated "Oppenheimer" earning a cool $82.4 million. Those numbers tower over the initial projections for both movies, effectively doubling them. It was easily the best weekend at the box office since the pandemic upended the industry. Variety's Rebecca Rubin has more.

Amplifying Aldean: The culture wars have catapulted Jason Aldean's "Try That in a Small Town" from obscurity to a hit. Before the song became the subject of national headlines, it had only sold a mere 1,000 units. But last week, after Aldean became ensnared in controversy, the song sold 228,000 units, THR's Mesfin Fekadu reported Monday. Streaming numbers for the track have, meanwhile, jumped a staggering 999%. And the song debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 list. Fekadu has more on its rise here.

🔎 Zooming in: The success of the controversial song is another example of how powerful the right-wing media machine has become in 2023, where criticism in traditional media can also give oxygen to those who capitalize off of the uproar. Aldean in recent days has been lionized in right-wing media, with commentators and outlets portraying him as the victim of a leftist mob for penning what they characterize as a patriotic song. Of course, that narrative leaves out some crucial facts. But facts rarely get in the way of narrative in such circles. 

Tech Talks: Alphabet and Snap are both set to report earnings Tuesday after the bell. The tech companies are the first in Silicon Valley to report their quarterly earnings, and will serve as a general bellwether for the entire digital advertising industry. Analysts will also be paying close attention to see what both companies, particularly Alphabet, are doing as the A.I. wars heat up. The WSJ's Charley Grant reports that, broadly speaking, Wall Street "expects smooth sailing for Big Tech earnings." We'll see.

Caught in the Crossfire: Film and television crew members who make their living by working on Hollywood sets are struggling amid the dual strikes that have shuttered the industry. The LAT's Anousha Sakoui and Stacy Perman reported on Monday that for the thousands of members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 44, the strikes have created extraordinarily difficult circumstances. "The strike is causing a lot of turmoil in the IATSE membership because it’s not our contract, and yet we are being affected by it as if it was our strike," one lighting technician said. IATSE chief Matthew D. Loeb said "the economic fallout for below-the-line crews members is real" and has called on studios to continue paying crew members. Read Sakoui and Perman's full story here.

Thank you for reading! This newsletter was edited by Jon Passantino and produced with the assistance of Liam Reilly. Have feedback? Send us an email here. We will see you back in your inbox tomorrow.