Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
Claim
‘The Simpsons’ predicted the rebranding of social media platform Twitter as “X”.
Fact
No such prediction. Viral image found to be altered.
Several social media users are circulating a purported image from iconic American animated sitcom, ‘The Simpsons’, claiming that it predicted Twitter’s rebranding to “X”. The viral image of a scene from the series shows a smartphone screen that has the new Twitter logo, a stylised white “X” against a black background.
The show has acquired a reputation of predicting major events, including Donald Trump becoming US president, the Walt Disney acquisition of 21st Century Fox, among others, while also spawning misinformation by social media users, which Newschecker has debunked, such as foreseeing Queen Elizabeth II’s year of death and the Silicon Valley bank collapse.
The archived versions of the tweets can be seen here and here.
Twitter’s Rebranding
Twitter on Monday officially rebranded to “X” after owner Elon Musk changed its iconic blue bird logo, marking the latest major shift since his takeover of the social media platform. Marketing and branding experts reportedly said that the unconventional and seemingly reckless strategy signals the start of Musk’s promised “everything app” and could have more to it than meets the eye.
Fact Check
Newschecker ran a reverse image search of the viral photo, which led us to this Simpsons Wiki write-up, featuring a similar image, but without the new Twitter logo.
We learnt that this was a scene from an episode titled, “Ned ‘n Edna’s Blend Agenda”, the twenty-first episode of season 23. A comparison indicates that the viral image was altered.
We then looked up the episode on Disney+ Hotstar, which first aired on May 13, 2012, where we saw the original image at the 17:44 mark, confirming that it had been edited.
Also Read: AI Trumps Humans? No, CGI Video Of Robot Beating Athlete In Table Tennis Rally Goes Viral
Conclusion
Viral posts claiming that ‘The Simpsons’ predicted Twitter’s rebranding to “X” were found to be false.
Result: Altered media
Sources
Disney+ Hotstar catalogue
Image analysis
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Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
