Twitter congratulated Elon Musk and Grimes on the birth of their baby boy with a trending hashtag that's fitting for the 2020s power couple: it's a confusing string of letters, numbers, and symbols.
That's because Musk quietly announced the birth in a string of replies that included a photo of him holding his sixth son (it's his girfriend Claire "c" Boucher's first child), a picture of the baby with a tattoo filter on his face, and also what Musk claims is his son's name: "X Æ A-12."
—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 5, 2020Both Musk and Grimes are huge trolls, which led to confusion over whether the pair were even actually having a baby in the first place. Musks' eccentricities and erratic Twitter behavior have gotten him in trouble in the past, including in the days leading up to the birth of his sixth son. Grimes, to her credit, also loves to trick people, and once claimed her Adidas-sponsored "training regime" included "astro-gliding" to other dimensions. Advertisement
The name announcement is probably a joke about all the memes leading up to the birth of what crazy, tech-oriented name the duo would pick for their child – and it also might contain a clue about what the name is actually is, since Musk liked a tweet that says the letters stand for "X Ash Archangel."
Either way, people had plenty to say about "X Æ A-12," starting with their takes on how to pronounce it. One person referenced the Vine-famous clip of Little Mix member Jesy Nelson trying to speak in a Jamaican accent, and accidentally speaking gibberish instead.
—Paul Kelly (@Paulkelllly) May 5, 2020Another tweet compared the pronunciation to a popular TikTok that English listeners turned into a meme, even though it just features a particularly sassy German teenager.Advertisement
—Ben Yahr (@benyahr) May 5, 2020
Barstool Sports podcast host Ellie Schnitt said the name sounds like a randomly generated wifi password.
—ellie schnitt (@holy_schnitt) May 5, 2020
A lot of the memes referenced what Grimes and Musk would be like as parents. This one uses a popular dub of electronic noises over a person speaking to poke fun at how Grimes might ask her son to clean his room.
—Tin #⃝ (@flawlessmorpher) May 5, 2020The memes played off the fact that Grimes is just as eccentric as her Tesla CEO boyfriend, and she dabbles in a lot of cyberbunk and futuristic fantasy aesthetics – her music is genre-defying, and she says her personal life is just as weird as her persona.
A lot of Grimes memes about her and her baby use electronic bleeps and bloops as a stand-in for the English language, which is fair, because Grimes uses non-English phrases, characters, and gibberish in her artistry all the time.
—helen (@helen) May 5, 2020
Others made jokes about how Grimes' and Musk's son would act, comparing him to the scary ficitional "Siren Head" cryptid created by artist Trevor Henderson that has become a TikTok meme.
—damo (@mfdamo) May 5, 2020One Grimes fan used a TikTok of a girl dancing while crying to express her feelings about the musician having a baby with the controversial tech titan. Advertisement
—friendly pokemon that craves stability (@thequeenofmemes) May 5, 2020
One tweet played off the famous "Substitute Teacher" Key & Peele sketch.
—ziwe (@ziwe) May 5, 2020
And another compared Musk to the matriarch in "Parasite."
—✨ Mallorie Jessica Udischas✨ (@SweetBeans99) May 5, 2020Boucher's hospital room in labor was compared to a burst of blinding light in the TV show "iCarly.:Advertisement
—jake faris (@fake_jaris) May 5, 2020
The baby boy himself was imagined as a tall masked creature running around the yard with his classmates.
—Manila Clams (@baoofwao) May 5, 2020
And finally, the "cat screaming electronic buzzing" meme returned to illustrate how baby Grimes would utter his first words. Congratulations to Musk and Boucher!
—communal black turtleneck (@edenmp4) May 5, 2020Read the original article on Insider