Matty Healy is stepping back after a heated back-and-forth social media exchange with Azealia Banks.
“Guys I don’t have the right kind of intelligence / emotional maturity etc for social media I literally just end up saying stuff that immediately regret etc,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter) Wednesday (Dec. 4). “I’m actually just gonna stick to music cos I’m good at that. Having manic episodes on twitter at 35 is kinda pathetic.”
Guys I don’t have the right kind of intelligence / emotional maturity etc for social media I literally just end up saying stuff that immediately regret etc. I’m actually just gonna stick to music cos I’m good at that. Having manic episodes on twitter at 35 is kinda pathetic ❤️— Truman Black (@Gooodmorninguys) December 4, 2024
The post was seemingly in reference to his feud with Banks, which started when the “Liquorice” rapper took aim at Charli XCX, who is engaged to Healy’s The 1975 bandmate George Daniel. Banks called out the “360” singer’s looks, saying she “used to be soooo pretty. Ugh.”
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In response, Healy wrote, “Azealia you seem to have a blind spot when it comes to your ‘reads’. All the women you attack seem to be culturally relevant, attractive, divisive and NICE people. I think this makes you jealous cos you’re so talented but everything else about you is a failure. Just rap bro.”
Azealia you seem to have a blind spot when it comes to your ‘reads’. All the women you attack seem to be culturally relevant, attractive, divisive and NICE people. I think this makes you jealous cos you’re so talented but everything else about you is a failure. Just rap bro https://t.co/xKe9b71UV1— Truman Black (@Gooodmorninguys) December 3, 2024
The reply spawned a sequence of aggressive words between the two, and while Healy deleted a number of his posts in the feud, he at one point threatened to “slap” Banks after she began throwing jabs at his fiancée, Gabbriette. “The b—- look like Frankenstein to me. You both look like you share needles. Lmao,” Banks wrote when Healy claimed he would “use my mental illness to full affect” and “dox” anyone who were to attack Gabi.
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Healy then wrote to Banks, “I now you think your life is some episode of the library is open but I am not the one. Talk to me like that I’m not gonna side eye you at an awards do I’m going to f—ing slap you so hard I’ll get a Guinness world record for the highest a rat some b—- calls a wig has ever flown.”
However, the “So American” singer quickly took back his words and deleted the post, then asking Banks to “sort this out on the remix,” adding, “Nah I can’t be saying I’m gonna hit a girl that’s insane I’m sorry. You just can’t keep being so mean about my mates and my mrs it’s really hurtful gets me well defensive.”
“She’d f—in batter me tbf,” he continued.
Banks then threatened to sue Healy, and leaked DMs in which he apologized to her. She concluded by attacking The 1975 frontman for getting “fined 4m for kissing a man on stage In Malaysia, doing a nazi salute, watching violent porn, being a heroin addict, writing s—ty songs, randomly attacking black women and caping for trash white b—-es. I question the women who associate with him. I’m signing off for today, because my anger is really really really boiling.”
Some of Banks’ post was in reference to Healy stirring up controversy in 2023 when he made racist and sexist remarks about rapper Ice Spice on the Adam Friedland Show, during which he and the hosts made jokes about the rapper sounding like an “Inuit Spice Girl” and looking like a “chubby Chinese lady” before performing racist accents. After one of the men suggested Healy should have asked the MC about her ethnic background while dropping an Inuit ethnic slur, Healy called Ice Spice “dumb.” He later somewhat apologized for his comments.
Healy also kissed his bandmate Ross MacDonald for an extended period of time onstage at Good Vibes Festival in Malaysia in July 2023, but the set came to an abrupt end after he spoke out against the country’s stances on LGBTQ+ rights.
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It’s no secret to anyone who is regularly on social media and is not from the land of MAGA Delulu that Elon Musk has not only eroded the value of X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, but he has turned it into a utopia of racial slurs, right-wing propaganda and shameless Trump-humping. Well, one media outlet is not about to pretend Musk hasn’t turned X into a MAGA fan page and it will no longer post on the platform because of it.
The Guardian is having none of Musk and his X-Klan (see what I did there?) shenanigans.
From Variety:
The Guardian made the announcement on Wednesday in a post on its website, writing that “the benefits of being on the platform formerly called Twitter” have now been “outweighed by the negatives.” The publication cited the “often disturbing content” found on the platform and said the way it handled last week’s U.S. presidential election — which saw Donald Trump win a second term — “crystallized” its decision.
“This is something we have been considering for a while given the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform, including far-right conspiracy theories and racism,” the publication said. “The U.S. presidential election campaign served only to underline what we have considered for a long time: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse.”
Musk, of course, responded to the news on X by basically describing Trump but applying the definition to The Guardian, tweeting, “They are a laboriously vile propaganda machine.”
That’s rich coming from the guy who supports the guy who has been fact-checked and found to be lying more than any modern president — the same president who spent four years spreading factless and thoroughly debunked election fraud propaganda until he kicked and screamed his way back into the White House.
Shout out to The Guardian for refusing to normalize Musk, Trump and the rest of the white nationalist propagandists who are, indeed, relying on lies and bigotry to “shape political discourse.” That’s what integrity actually looks like, not that any of the aforementioned would know anything about that.
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Source: Matt Cardy / Getty / X
The consensus is that X, formerly Twitter, has been trash since Elon Musk took over. We need a new space to share memes, jokes, and news that’s not MAGA-fueled and watch shows together as a family, and there are options. Wherever you choose to go, we are here to help you kick X to the curb.
It’s no secret ever since Elon Musk bought Twitter, changed the name to X, reinstated Donald Trump’s account, and introduced a bevy of changes that made the platform outright unbearable, users (especially Black Twitter) have been screaming for a place to take online cleverness, conversations, and jokes.
Well, if you are one of the 700,000 people who left X for Bluesky in the last few months, Instagram Threads or Spill, you are probably considering shutting down that old X account for good, just to stick it to the lord of Dark MAGA, Elon Musk.
If you need assistance, follow these steps to shut down your X account for good.
Make Your Account Private
First, you definitely should make your account private just to let the people you trust the most and want to migrate with you to the other app of choice.
If you post on X via the desktop, you can make your account private by selecting More > Settings and Privacy > Privacy and Safety > Audience, media, and Tagging > Protect your posts.
For mobile users, follow these steps: Settings & Support > Settings and Privacy > Privacy and Safety > Audience and tagging > Protect your posts.
When the browser pops up, just hit “Protect.”
Download Your Tweets
The second step is to download all of the Tweets you have posted throughout the years to retain all of that information.
Here’s how you do that: via the web browser, click on More > Settings and Privacy > Your account > Download an archive of your data.
If you’re on mobile, select Settings & Support > Settings and Privacy > Your account > Download an archive of your data.
Once you have completed those steps, you will be prompted to reenter your password. A verification code will then be sent to the email you signed up with, and possibly other verification codes as well.
Once that is complete, you select “Request Archive,” from there, it may take up to 24 hours to receive a copy of your archive.
Deactivate Your X Account
The final step is the most liberating one: deactivating your X account. You can begin the deactivation process in your browser by clicking more; on mobile, simply tap your profile icon.
For browser users, follow this process: settings and Support > Settings and Privacy > Your account > Deactivate your account.
Mobile users select Settings & Support > Settings and Privacy > Your account > Deactivate account.
Like with any app or service you are trying to cancel, you can expect some resistance trying to deter you from canceling; X is no different.
Once you complete the above steps, you will be given several paragraphs of information about what data will be available to you after deactivation.
X will also inform you that your account will not be permanently deactivated until after 30 days, giving you time to reconsider your decision.
But why would you want to do that?
If you followed all of these steps, you have taken the enormous step of liberating yourself from X.
Congrats!
See you on Threads or Bluesky.
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Source: IAN LANGSDON / Getty / Bluesky
Is X, formerly on Twitter, finally on its way out? Bluesky, a social media platform similar to Twitter of old, has gained many new users and could be the new wave going forward.
Speaking with The Verge, Bluesky COO Rose Wang confirmed that the social media platform has gained over 700,00 followers in the last week and now boasts more than 14.5 million users total.
Wang told the website that a majority of the users are from the United States. Currently, the Bluesky app is the number two free social media app in the US App Store, only trailing Meta’s Threads.
The sharp increase in followers could be due to several factors, including Elon Musk, the recent change to the block feature, and Donald Trump’s unfortunate presidential election victory.
Per The Verge:
The independent platform has seen a lot of growth in recent weeks — on October 24th, Bluesky announced it had 13 million users. After X’s recent announcement that it would let blocked users still see posts from the person that blocked them, for example, Bluesky said it added 500,000 new users in one day.
The results of the US presidential election could be part of Bluesky’s new influx of users. People may be looking to use a platform that’s not owned by Musk or, like some Taylor Swift fans, may be looking for a new platform following an increase in hate speech on X.
Bluesky Has Made Significant Improvements To The Platform
Since it first launched as an invite-only service, Bluesky has improved greatly thanks to several new improvements, such as sharing videos, pinned posts, and sending DMs.
Users can also create custom and select which feeds to follow on Bluesky. Even with all the strides the app has made, it still trails Threads which has crossed 275 million monthly users.
But if Elon Musk keeps making X a cesspool, combined with the current momentum the app is seeing, Bluesky could easily take the number one spot and be the new home for former members of Black Twitter.
After backlash to a spicy tweet about Ye and Taylor Swift, Zach Bryan has deactivated his X account.
On Wednesday (Sept. 18), the country star shared a hot take that might have proven to be too hot for social media. “eagles > chiefs,” his message started, followed by, “Kanye > Taylor.” He concluded: “who’s with me” — and the answer to that question appears to have driven him off the site formerly known as Twitter.
Swifties quickly came to Taylor’s defense, given Bryan’s message was a twofold offense against both Swift and her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. “He knew not to mess with the Swifties,” one commenter wrote on a Pop Crave post about the tweet, with another writing: “got all brave just to wimp out and deactivate.”
According to Bryan’s Instagram (which is still active), he’s been on a Kanye kick lately. The first four of his current Instagram Stories, as of press time, feature four older songs by Ye (formerly Kanye West): “Good Life,” featuring T-Pain, from 2007’s Graduation and “I Thought About Killing You,” “All Mine” and “Ghost Town,” featuring PARTYNEXTDOOR, from 2018’s Ye.
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The Eagles and Chiefs football rivalry has heated up over the past few years, with Travis Kelce facing off against his now-retired brother Jason Kelce and the Philly squad in the 2023 Super Bowl, with Kansas City emerging victorious.
But the much more heated rivalry has been between Swift and Ye, whose story began when West interrupted Taylor’s 2009 VMAs acceptance speech to declare Beyoncé should have won instead. They reconciled after that and even formed an unlikely friendship, before Ye put some questionable lyrics about Swift in his “Famous” song and his then-wife Kim Kardashian released a recording of a private phone call between the two musicians that set their rocky relationship ablaze.
The pair have made references to their famous feud as recently as last month, with Ye rapping about Swift’s relationship with Kelce on his Vultures 2 album and Swift restyling a Tortured Poets Department song’s title to capitalize YE: “thank You aimEe.”
See the tweet from Bryan’s now-deleted account below:
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Source: NurPhoto / Getty / Elon Musk
Since Elon Musk reluctantly dropped $44 billion on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, he has been giving a masterclass on how to ruin something already good. A new report details how one of his ideas, Twitter Blue, was a disaster from the start.
A New York Times report revealed that employees at X, formerly Twitter, tried to warn Musk about the dangers of his dumb idea, Twitter Blue, which allowed users to purchase verified blue checkmarks along with other features was a “dangerous” idea during a meeting at the company’s San Francisco office on November 9, 2022.
According to the report, Musk dismissed the employee’s concerns, telling them to be “adventurous” while eating the snacks in the office. Twitter Blue would go on to be the disaster his employees tried to warn them about as fake accounts with blue checkmarks began popping up instantaneously, spewing out false information and eroding trust among users.
Per The NYT:
“We’re going to be shooting from the hip in real time,” Mr. Musk said, fashioning his hands into a pair of finger guns.
Previously, Blue had been a small part of the company’s business, which relied on advertising for 90 percent of its revenue. Blue allowed a few thousand die-hard users to pay for premium features, like the ability to edit their tweets and customize the Twitter app on their phones, but it never gained much traction. To Mr. Musk, a Twitter obsessive who had purchased the company for $44 billion, the service represented an untapped financial opportunity.
Mr. Musk’s attempt to rescue a company he saw as a sinking ship was premised on the idea that he could persuade people — millions of them — to pay for Twitter Blue. That scheme, however, was doomed from the start by the haphazard planning and capriciousness of Twitter’s owner, whose nearly two-year stewardship of the company has cratered its finances and sullied his reputation as a generational entrepreneur.
Musk eventually shuttered Twitter Blue following its launch before relaunching it again, but the damage was already done, with the platform’s most famous users vowing not to pay for the service.
Phony Stark would also change the company’s name from Twitter to X, a very bonehead decision, and advertisers have shunned the platform.
The Tesla Chief has also begun pushing our right-wing conspiracies, restored Donald Trump’s account, and has endorsed the Orange Menace for president.
We really need Threads or some other app to give us a reason to kick X to the curb.
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Source: CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / Getty
Gus Walz is the son of Minnesota Governor and VP candidate Tim Walz. The 17-year-old won the hearts of millions when during the Democratic National Convention he displayed raw emotion, clapping “That’s my dad!” during his father’s speech on Wednesday (August 21) night.
While the goodwill was already flowing, Gus Walz’s legend only grew when many then learned that when he was becoming a teen he was diagnosed with a nonverbal learning disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. As you would guess, the Walz family was nothing but supportive, telling People magazine, “It took time, but what became so immediately clear to us was that Gus’ condition is not a setback — it’s his secret power.”
Nevertheless, people on the conservative right proceeded to show their asses on social media and actually mocked Gus Walz for daring to show emotion during his father’s stirring moment when he accepted the VP nomination. The worst of the bunch was easily Ann Coulter, who wrote “Talk about weird…” as a caption of a picture of Gus in tears. Of course, Coulter eventually deleted her tweet after immense backlash, but nothing is ever wiped away on the Internets.
Coulter was not an anomaly, with many a troglodyte co-signing her foolishness with similar attacks. But despite Elon Musk’s X becoming a cesspool of hate, the overwhelming reactions have been nothing but support and love for Gus Walz and his family. Social media is filled with people smacking down the attacks with accounts about their own lives with neurodivergent children and while disparaging the lack of human decency Coulter and her ilk routinely display.
See some of the more passionate reactions in the gallery.
3. Never forget.
7. Posting for archival purpose because they will deny it.
8. It’s personal.
9. We won’t condone everything written here, but we understand.
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Source: CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / Getty
Gus Walz is the son of Minnesota Governor and VP candidate Tim Walz. The 17-year-old won the hearts of millions when during the Democratic National Convention he displayed raw emotion, clapping “That’s my dad!” during his father’s speech on Wednesday (August 21) night.
While the goodwill was already flowing, Gus Walz’s legend only grew when many then learned that when he was becoming a teen he was diagnosed with a nonverbal learning disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. As you would guess, the Walz family was nothing but supportive, telling People magazine, “It took time, but what became so immediately clear to us was that Gus’ condition is not a setback — it’s his secret power.”
Nevertheless, people on the conservative right proceeded to show their asses on social media and actually mocked Gus Walz for daring to show emotion during his father’s stirring moment when he accepted the VP nomination. The worst of the bunch was easily Ann Coulter, who wrote “Talk about weird…” as a caption of a picture of Gus in tears. Of course, Coulter eventually deleted her tweet after immense backlash, but nothing is ever wiped away on the Internets.
Coulter was not an anomaly, with many a troglodyte co-signing her foolishness with similar attacks. But despite Elon Musk’s X becoming a cesspool of hate, the overwhelming reactions have been nothing but support and love for Gus Walz and his family. Social media is filled with people smacking down the attacks with accounts about their own lives with neurodivergent children and while disparaging the lack of human decency Coulter and her ilk routinely display.
See some of the more passionate reactions in the gallery.
3. Never forget.
7. Posting for archival purpose because they will deny it.
8. It’s personal.
9. We won’t condone everything written here, but we understand.
Multimedia platform Verzuz, co-founded by Swizz Beatz and Timbaland, has secured a distribution partnership with Elon Musk’s X. The news was announced by Beatz and Timbaland during an activation in Cannes, France today (June 19).
Under the terms of the new partnership, the Verzuz co-founders maintain their full 100% ownership and creative control of the platform, while X has exclusive distribution rights. Now viewers will be able to watch the livestream series for free through X, which reaches an audience of more than 550 million active users.
Earlier this year, Beatz and Timbaland reacquired the Verzuz platform from previous partner Triller. At the same time, the pair retained their equity — along with the artists who participated in Verzuz — in Triller.
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In a release announcing the X alliance, Beatz said, “We are beyond thrilled to have found the best partner for Verzuz. Not only are we excited to have Verzuz on X, we’re excited to help X build the biggest entertainment company in the world. I would like to thank Elon Musk, Linda Yaccarino, Brett Weitz, Mitchell Smith and the entire X team for believing in the Verzuz vision. We can’t wait to get to work.”
“We are thrilled to partner with X, the most innovative platform globally,” commented Timbaland. “Our goal has always been to bring Verzuz to the world, which we can now do bigger than ever.”
Added X CEO Yaccarino, “X is so proud to partner with trailblazing creators, artists and entrepreneurs Swizz Beatz and Timbaland. Our platform stands at the forefront of innovation, and Verzuz defines the essence of an innovative content experience. As we continue to work with the most exciting voices to bring premium content to X, there is no better fit than this series. Together we will redefine how consumers engage with their favorite entertainment, one Verzuz at a time.”
The last sing-off presented by Verzuz, whose president is Steve Pamon, was between R&B stars Omarion and Mario in Los Angeles in summer 2022. Also featuring a pre-show with Ray J, Bobby V, Pleasure P and Sammy, the battle drew over 5.1 million total viewers across Instagram, Fite TV, Triller, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Twitch.
Under its partnership with Uncontained Media, headed by Christian Sarabia and Raymond Garcia, Verzuz has also produced such shows as the Emmy-winning Drive with Swizz Beatz. Uncontained Media will serve as the production company and executive producers of Verzuz.
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Source: NurPhoto / Getty / X / Twitter
It took a while, but Twitter.com is officially dead.
The rollout for X, Elon Musk’s version of the social media platform known as Twitter, was a hot ass mess. Logging onto Twitter.com still worked, and sharing tweets on websites didn’t work unless you changed the x in the URL to Twitter (that still is the case.).
Today, many desktop Twitter users were surprised to see that typing Twitter.com now redirects them to Elon Musk’s X.
Along with the redirect, a message at the bottom of the webpage says, “We are letting you know that we are changing our URL, but your privacy and data protection settings remain the same.”
The domain transition from Twitter to now X was a weird one. Almost everything, like the platform’s official account, mobile apps, and useless premium accounts, was under the new X branding, while Twitter.com still worked.
Of course, even though Elon Musk is still turning X into the “everything app” he has envisioned, users on X are sticking by the original name and telling Musk, “We are still gonna call it Twitter.”
The platform, formerly known as Twitter, has seen better days. Bots live in people’s mentions, porn is all over timelines, and there are way too many Cheech and Chong edible ads.
Still, as our favorite tech reviewer, Marques Brownlee, said in a post, it’s “still Twitter.”
You can see more reactions in the gallery below.
2. Forever