The HBO Max rebrand just keeps getting messier

Poor old HBO Max. The streaming service has faced ridicule in recent months over its (lack of) rebrand strategy, which as seen the name change from HBO Max, to Max, to—checks notes—HBO Max. But just when the embarrassment of reverting back to its old name was beginning to subside, it seems to be causing the brand a fresh headache.

HBO Max has revealed that Twitter (sorry, X) is refusing to allow the platform to change its handle back from @StreamOnMax to the previous version, ye olde @hbomax. And so, once again, the platform finds itself stuck in name, and branding, limbo.

The brand's social media manager has clearly been instructed to work from the Gen Z playbook, tweeting through the whole thing with lowercase irreverence. "twitter won't let me change my name back," the brand simply announced. (Kudos for using the social media platform's old name.)

Time will tell whether the handle will be reversed, but this is yet another chapter of what might be the messiest rebrand of all time – rivalled only, ironically, the rebrand of Twitter itself.