Kekius Maximus Musk Followed Me

The Department of Government Efficiency has noted my largesse

Elon and his Parrot. This is the profile pic he chose for his Substack. He looks like he is in space in one of his Teslas.

I assumed this was fake:

But, not according to “Know Your Meme”:

From the article:

Billionaire and X / Twitter owner Elon Musk has changed his username and profile picture to reference internet culture quite a few times in the past, whether to support cryptocurrencies or just for the laughs. With his last username change, Musk adopted the title of "Kekius Maximus," a name that people who have been keeping an eye on meme culture for a long time will surely recognize.

If this name didn't instantly ring any bells for you, stick with us, we've got the story of the once-popular internet catchphrase covered for you.

What Is ‘Kekius Maximus’?

The catchphrase "Kekius Maximus" is a portmanteau of "kek" and a stereotypical Ancient Roman name such as Flavius Maximus. Let's dig a little bit deeper into each part of it before we go further.

"Kek" originated as a translation of the acronym "lol" when written by members of the Horde faction in World of Warcraft. Instead of seeing "lol" in chat, opposing Alliance players would see "kek" due to the in-game language system between different races and factions.

The word then became a prevalent alternative to "lol" in the late 2000s and early 2010s, primarily on 4chan, spawning many deviating memes, phrases and concepts over time, such as "Topkek" and "Kekistan."

The phrase "Kekius Maximus," which has been used online at least since 2014, likely references Maximus Decimus Meridius, the main character in Ridley Scott's film Gladiator. Therefore it has been associated with imagery of gladiators and soldiers of Ancient Rome, as well as the film itself.

Additionally, "Kekius" translates to "the greatest" or "largest", with the phrase therefore literally translating to "the greatest kek" (while "great kek" is itself a common expression).

This all happened on New Year’s Eve, 2024:

Having run out of things to do, he followed me.

I’m assuming an army of bots followed everyone on the planet. Should I follow back?

Or should I just ROFLMAO to the Maximus? For now, I will just scratch my head and ponder.

Oooh! Maybe, Kekius will

Click the Pic

On a different note, I thought he hated Substack. OK, to be fair, I had heard and not verified that he made X hostile to Substack accounts/posts/somethings. Wouldn’t let their links work, or some such.

As if he had the time for something so petty?

So, I asked Chad: was X hostile to Substack posts?

ChatGPT said:

​Yes, in April 2023, Twitter (now known as X) implemented measures that restricted users' ability to interact with Substack content on its platform. Users observed that they could not like, retweet, or reply to tweets containing Substack links, although quote-tweeting remained possible. Additionally, Twitter marked Substack links as "unsafe," displaying warnings when users attempted to access them. ​theguardian.com+5socialmediatoday.com+5en.wikipedia.org+5vice.comThe Verge

This friction coincided with Substack's announcement of "Notes," a feature resembling Twitter's microblogging format, leading to speculation that Twitter's actions were a response to potential competition. ​en.wikipedia.org

After approximately six days, Twitter lifted these restrictions, allowing normal interaction with Substack links to resume. Substack acknowledged this development, stating, "We're glad to see that the suppression of Substack publications on Twitter appears to be over. This is the right move for writers." ​businessinsider.com+4theguardian.com+4vice.com+4X.com

Therefore, while there was a temporary period during which Twitter was hostile to Substack posts, the platform eventually restored full functionality concerning Substack content.

OK, so that was almost 2 years ago. And, I kind of doubt it was done at his behest.

Anyway, now he has one. So, yeah, I will follow back.