Of all the bizarre decisions to come out of Twitter following Elon Musk’s takeover last October, removing headlines might be the dumbest. The social media platform has officially beheaded all links in a curious crusade against news organizations and the platform’s shrinking user base.
Elon Musk first warned us in August that the platform would be removing link headlines. Previously, links shared to the platform would boast a headline, a short synopsis of the story, and a feature image. Now, links only include the featured image and the name of the outlet is displayed in teeny-tiny type. This new directive retroactively siphons important information from pre-existing tweets that can’t be edited and forces users to manually input the headline into the body of the post. While this only requires a simple copy and paste in most instances, it also requires acting in good faith—and we all know that Twitter is famous for its users who act in good faith.
“Although Elon Musk has framed this as a decision informed by aesthetic considerations, it can be seen as part of a larger trend toward making Twitter/X more difficult for news organizations to use,” Cardiff University journalism professor Karin Wahl-Jorgensen told The Washington Post in an email. “It is likely to have a significant adverse impact on click-through rates because platform users will no longer have the necessary context to understand the content of links — and therefore little reason to click on them.”
Musk eventually started attacking people who didn’t like the new change to Twitter. Cloud computing company Box’s CEO Aaron Levie expressed his opinion on the headline removal, tweeting that it “makes Twitter far worse for its primary value prop of getting news quickly.” Musk then handwaved Levie’s opinion away in a reply, inexplicably insisting that anyone who doesn’t like it is simply a sheep who listens to the mainstream media.
In the wake of this game-changing tweak to the digital infrastructure of X/Twitter, users did what they do best: Memed it to hell. The removal of headlines offered jokesters on the site the opportunity to rewrite history with a hilarious punchline, with Elon Musk being the subject. The jokes were plentiful: Musk is dying, tripping on ketamine, and having his genitals mutilated in a car door all in a single day. Here are the 12 best headlines.
Rest in Peace :/
The beauty of this post is how simple it is—we don’t need any further information to assume that Elon Musk bit it. The image shared here is actually a doctored screenshot to appear as if it links to an actual CNN article announcing Musk’s demise.
Elon Musk: Pedophile
Nevertheless, the internet has never forgotten Elon Musk calling a British diver a “pedo guy” on Twitter after Musk’s poorly engineered submarine was shot down in a bid to save some Thai children stuck in a flooded cave. My how the tables turn…
Several users have meme’d this particular Fortune article, which describes Musk removing headlines from Twitter/X. @JUNlPER was suspended from the platform shortly after this screenshot was taken. RIP @JUNlPER.
Rest in Peace (again) :/
Elon Musk reportedly died a second time, with this user rewriting the headline for an MSNBC article that argues the tech billionaire is frictionlessly sliding farther and farther to the right.
Enemies(?) to lovers
Last year, Business Insider ran a story claiming that socialite, convicted sex offender, and Jeffery Epstein right-hand-woman Ghislaine Maxwell asked Elon Musk to destroy the internet after the two were photographed together at a Vanity Fair party in 2014. In some ways, her wish is coming true on X.
Elon Musk: Cannibal
A seemingly innocuous report from the New York Post on Musk opting not to sell his home in LA is now the source of an even darker truth—Elon Musk allegedly eating people.
Botched Hair Transplant
Some age gracefully, those who don’t seek out hair transplants. Nothing to sneeze at until it goes wrong. The aforementioned Fortune article now boasts a headline claiming Musk’s aesthetic procedure—with a curious donor site—has gone awry.
He Likes to Party
Elon Musk likes to indulge in a little ketamine here and there according to The Wall Street Journal. This user tweeted out an allusion to that rumor while linking to this CNBC article about Twitter losing headlines.
Elon Musk: Union Buster
Tesla has been the site of some alleged union busting, both in terms of allegedly firing unionizing employees as well as reportedly suppressing attempts by employees to wear union merch.
Teslas with a History of Mangling
Tesla’s are known to burst into flames, but they also might mangle your genitalia. Musk reportedly faced some excruciating pain in this doctored headline from the widely meme’d Fortune article.
Rest in Peace (a third time) :/
Elon Musk died a third time, this time by being a little kinkster in this edited headline from the Fortune story.
Never forget.
This Bloomberg story on the morality surrounding engaging with Musk’s social media platform has turned into the best evidence of that very story being accurate. The headline now documents Musk eviscerating a bathroom at a convenience store with his bowel movement.
What we’ve all been waiting for…
The moment we’ve all been waiting for has unfortunately not come to fruition, despite this doctored headline from the Fortune article stating that Musk has stepped down from X/Twitter.