But It Refused / Twitter Bird Fights Back

About

But It Refused / Twitter Bird Fights Back refers to a viral video of Twitter / X experiencing a loading error in which Twitter's original blue bird logo flashes over the "X" logo. The video grew popular in September of 2024 as users joked that it was symbolic of "Twitter's" fight against its rebrand to X, resulting in the creation of fan art depicting the bird's struggle.

Origin

On September 10th, 2024 Twitter user OP1KER^[1] posted a video, captioned "but it refused," where Twitter / X experienced a loading glitch, causing the logo to swiftly oscillate between the site's former "blue bird" logo and its current "X" logo. The video gained over 25,000 retweets and 216,000 likes in eight days.

Spread

OP1KER's clip inspired memes, commentary and fan art over the following days, with users characterizing the blue bird as a character attempting to overcome its suppression. For example, on September 11th, 2024, user @_shrimpo^[2] posted an Undertale parody of the video, gaining over 940 retweets and 4,100 likes in one week.

On the same day, user @EmberCelicaTide^[3] quote-tweeted the original video, writing, "why is this genuinely making me feel like empathetic for the twitter bird fight back buddy you can do it," gaining over 51,000 retweets and 644,000 likes in one week.

On September 12th, user @BSkelebunny01^[4] posted fan art depicting Twitter's blue bird saying "I will not be replaced!", gaining over 900 retweets and 4,500 likes in six days.

User @OrangeAndInsane^[5] took a different route, setting the video to the Pokémon evolution music, gaining over 20 retweets and 100 likes in one week.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References