No, Marvel is not renaming the X-Men
Stop falling for and spreading nonsensical clickbait
For the past few days, there has been a full-on social media freakout over the reports that Marvel is planning to change the X-Men’s name when the famous mutants make their MCU debut. Reactions have run the gamut, from people labeling it as performative to the typical right-wing whining over “wokeness” and “SJWs.”
And yet, what nobody is talking about is the fact that this is 100% bullshit.
I was curious where this started, and from the digging I was able to do, it seems that the originator of this “news” was the website We Got This Covered (I refuse to link to their article because I don’t want to give them more clicks).
WGTC has a notorious reputation for publishing stories that have very little basis in reality. I’m convinced that if you were to email one of their writers and claim without any evidence that you work for Marvel and convey some rumor that you made up on the spot, within an hour WGTC would tweet out an article parroting that false rumor.
WGTC and sites like them frequently take an unfounded rumor or a random comment, write an article around it, and then slap it under an attention-grabbing headline.
In this instance, Victoria Alonso was recently promoted within Marvel to a president position. WGTC then dug up an interview she had done two years prior in which she made an offhand comment about the name X-Men being funny because of all the female members who have often served as the focus. WGTC took this as proof that Marvel was definitely going to change the X-Men’s name to something else. And they conveniently forgot to mention that Alonso’s comment was two years old and in an interview completely unrelated to her recent promotion.
Anyone who uses some basic thinking skills could see how many holes are in this story. Disney spent $71.3 billion dollars for control over 20th Century Fox’s assets, which include the X-Men movie rights. Thanks not only to the comics but also the animated shows and the movies that made Hugh Jackman a star, the X-Men is one of the most recognizable and popular brands in the entire world. The idea that Disney would go through all that trouble and then not take advantage of such a valuable brand is utterly ridiculous. I don’t care how “woke” they are, no Disney executive would do something that monumentally stupid.
These types of articles are what I like to refer to as “wokebait.” It’s an attempt to gin up right-wing outrage over perceived “wokeness” in media. And it worked. Not long after WGTC published the article, it was picked up by far-right outlets like Fox News and Daily Mail published their own articles and alt-right agitators like Ben Shapiro (who I guarantee has never read a comic book in his life) were complaining about it on social media.
WGTC and other sites of their ilk thrive on this sort of outrage because their entire business model is based on clicks. The more clicks an article gets, the more money the writer makes. Doesn’t matter how poorly written an article is or what little substance it has. All that matters is can you get people to click.
People need to start exhibiting a higher degree of media literacy. Stop clicking on every attention-grabbing headline you see and certainly stop spreading them. Rely on official sources, not unfounded rumors.
The only way to cut off these clickbait sites is to stop playing their game.
