Social Media & Current Culture

Free Speech at Its Best? “Elon Musk” is Having a Lot of Fun Roasting Mark Zuckerberg… and Elon Musk

Parody is alive and well at X

I must admit, the little red devil perched upon my left shoulder loves the new X… and dare I say… under the leadership of Elon Musk.

Not always a popular opinion with people who think he’s the devil incarnate… and this isn’t to say that I love everything he does. Actually, a lot of what he does is rather nauseating.

However, the platform itself is anything but boring these days… and a bit of controversy makes the world go ‘round. As long as no one gets seriously hurt, that is.

After Elon Musk notoriously bought out Twitter, recently rebranded as X, he vowed to make it a place where free speech would reign supreme. He’d been a fierce critic of what he deemed as censorship by Twitter under the direction of former CEO Jack Dorsey.

True to his word, after acquiring Twitter, Musk reinstated many accounts that had previously been suspended, like Mike Lindell and Jordan Peterson, and invited back arguably one of the most divisive personalities ever, former President Donald Trump (who said he was just fine sticking with his far-right Truth Social platform.)

To be sure, I don’t care for any of these people, Lindell and Peterson are completely ignorable in my book, and I’m glad Trump stayed away in his own online hemisphere.

Free speech is awesome but inciting violence is not.

In another controversial move, Musk eventually declared parody accounts would be allowed as long as they were indeed labeled as “parody”.

Well now, Musk opened the door, so he had to be prepared to walk through it, right? Remember, he’d previously suspended Kathy Griffin for her own parody, although she was reinstated days later.

But, prepared he was.

One of the most popular parody accounts currently on the platform is the one of Elon Musk himself. How fitting indeed.

This meme of Musk dressed up as (perhaps?) a secret Barbie fan proved popular as well as this one of a homeless Musk:

But, not as popular as this meme of Mark Zuckerberg dressed as Barbie:

Most notably, after Zuckerberg launched the Threads platform, Musk sent him a cease-and-desist letter and threatened to sue for creating what he deemed was a “copycat” of Twitter. In turn, the Musk parody account sent out this rather hideous lampoon (or X?):

“I spent $44 billion for this app and now Lizard boy just decided to hit copy and paste.

It’s personal now.

See you in the cage, Zuck.”

And the real Musk replied:

“So many people think this account is me 👀”

Parody account also once sent out:

“At this point, I can’t keep track of which account I’m tweeting from.”

And the real Musk replied: “Same.”

So, it’s safe to say that, for now, Musk is embracing his parody account.

Not everyone is happy with their own parody account though and Musk has been facing some intense backlash.

New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez became quite angry after she accused Musk of boosting a parody account imitating her and making false policy statements under her name.

However, Musk has maintained that parody and satire of government officials is protected free speech. Several users as well have pointed out that the account in question is clearly marked as a parody and makes such outlandish statements as “farming should be illegal”, which no one in their right mind would take seriously.

Perhaps making light of the feud, Musk’s parody account includes references to a secret crush Musk has on Ocasio-Cortez, which some might find offensive, and others might find too silly to take seriously.

Then again, there was this recent report of a parody account of Japan’s Vice Minister of Finance Masato Kanda, which the real Kanda asked Musk to take down.

Apparently, Musk did. One could make the argument that he has some kind of brains.

Furthering this argument, it’s nice to know that Musk does draw the line somewhere. After reinstating Kayne West’s account last year, West was again suspended in December for attempts to incite violence after he posted antisemitic content.

Crazy enough, he was recently let back on but thankfully he has yet to post. Maybe he would like Trump’s Truth Social? Could fit in well there. Anyone else find the “Truth” part of that title laughable?

Zuckerberg has a parody account as well, which has taken advantage of the feud between Musk and the real Zuckerberg, which Politico hilariously called “the gift that keeps on giving”:

And then there is this crazy meme of Zuckerberg posing as pope.

Zuckerberg seems to be taking it all in stride, just as Musk is, after he agreed to a real cage match fight, which has yet to be scheduled on any serious level.

He did, however, send out this shirtless photo of himself preparing for the fight.

For a timeline of the Musk/Zuckerberg feud click here.

So, what do you think of the new X rebranding and Musk’s leadership of the platform as a whole? Are you still on the platform, holding your own like Stephen King, or have you left and never plan to come back?

And what do you think about these crazy parody accounts. Funny or dangerous?

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