Esports Organization TSM Gets Stuck With Embarrassing FTX Partnership In Its Name Thanks To Twitter's Lock On Username Changes

In what may go down as the most "November 2022" story in history, professional esports organization TSM found itself in a bind yesterday because it ended its partnership with FTX after the cryptocurrency exchange was revealed to be a scam, but it was unable to reflect that on Twitter because of Elon Musk's lockdown of name changes on verified profiles.

Attempting to publicly announce the end of its partnership with the scandalous company while also sporting the username "TSM FTX" proved to be both confusing and embarrassing.

when the A story and B story finally connect pic.twitter.com/sI7xtAVBBw

— Rob DenBleyker (@RobDenBleyker) November 16, 2022

Due to current Twitter restrictions on BOTH handles and display names. Neither TSM or any of their members and players with FTX in their names can actually change it… until further notice pic.twitter.com/P5mT8XTvul

— Jake Lucky (@JakeSucky) November 16, 2022

For many, this intersection of the FTX crash and Musk's apparent crashing of Twitter underpinned how mind-bogglingly dumb things are on the internet right now.

Currently, FTX head Sam Bankman-Fried is in hot water for duping investors out of millions, then gloating about it over Twitter DMs with a Vox journalist (not to mention the wild stuff discovered about his girlfriend, Caroline Ellison).

Meanwhile, Elon Musk has spent November tinkering with Twitter's once-functional verification system in a highly controversial manner. Among the many tweaks he's made that have caused chaos on the website, one particularly curious one was making it so verified users could not change their handle, leaving many accounts stuck with joke names (a prominent example being the musician Doja Cat getting "stuck as Christmas").

The confluence of these issues landed on TSM, formerly TSM FTX, who otherwise had a good weekend as its Smash Ultimate player Tweek won the Port Priority 7 tournament on Sunday.

Thankfully, the folks at TSM were able to get the name they wanted, albeit with no help from Musk or anyone remaining at Twitter. According to @followdunc, the head of TSM's social, they were able to remove "FTX" from their display name by "Giga giga spamming" the "change name" function on the site until their fingers were "worn out."

For any verified people wanting to change their display name. Giga giga spam save when changing your display name on DESKTOP only. TSM social team fingers are now worn out. https://t.co/F3SPsd1nS5

— TSM DUNC (@followdunc) November 16, 2022