Feed: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics
Feed Link: https://www.engadget.com/
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Title: The 560-pound Twitter sign met a fiery end in a Nevada desert

Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2025 13:50:34 +0000
Link: https://www.engadget.com/social-media/the-560...

Earlier this year, the 12-foot tall, 560-pound Twitter logo that used to sit
atop the company's San Francisco headquarters was auctioned off for $34,000.
Now, we know who bought it and what became of the sign: it was blown up in
the Nevada desert as part of an elaborate stunt to promote an online
marketplace app.

In some ways, "Larry," as the blue Twitter bird was known to former
employees, met an end that mirrors the death of the social media platform it
once represented: an explosive, expensive spectacle that leaves you wondering
what, exactly, was the point of it all.

For Ditchit, a startup hoping to compete with services like Facebook
Marketplace and OfferUp, the chance to own ΓÇö and then blow up ΓÇö a piece
of social media history was a unique opportunity. In the video posted to
YouTube, Ditchit attempts to draw some parallels between Elon Musk's takeover
of Twitter and its own startup ambitions.

"Elon Musk rebranded Twitter to X to support free expression," the video
says. "We're doing the same for local marketplaces." The connection seems
tenuous at best, but James Deluca, who oversees Ditchit's PR efforts, says
the company's mainstream competitors like OfferUp are "prioritizing profits
over the user experience," pointing to high seller fees and other policies
that prioritize listings from businesses rather than the "average person who
wants to sell in their garage."

Deluca claims the decision to actually blow up the enormous Twitter sign
"emerged organically" sometime after Ditchit placed the winning bid. "The
initial thought of purchasing the sign was driven by nostalgia," he told
Engadget. "Everyone in the office is a tech enthusiast, and we thought it
would be cool to own a piece of history."

But any sentimental attachment the company's employees had apparently didn't
last long. After paying to move the 12-foot sign from San Francisco to
Ditchit's office in Orange County, California, it moved the sign another 250
miles to the desert outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. The company arranged for
the controlled explosion to happen at an outdoor "adventure park" that allows
visitors to shoot machine guns and drive monster trucks.

Deluca didn't disclose how much the startup spent on the stunt, but said it
was "a considerable investment" for the company that launched its app less
than a year ago. As part of the effort, Ditchit also rented four Tesla
Cybertrucks and hired a 15-person production team to capture the moment from
all possible angles. The explosion itself was engineered by a pyrotechnics
expert who typically works on film sets. "We wanted to really make a
statement and make the scene as dramatic as possible," Deluca said.

Somehow, the explosion isn't quite the end of Larry's story, though. Ditchit
says it's selling fragments of the sign it retrieved after the explosion and
will list them on its app in a sealed-bid auction beginning today. Proceeds
from the sale will be donated to the Center for American Entrepreneurship, a
nonprofit that advocates for startups and lists Meta, Amazon and Google as
members of its corporate advisory council.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at
https://www.engadget.com/social-media/the-560...
end-in-a-nevada-desert-140032860.html?src=rss

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