{"id":103451,"date":"2025-05-15T12:04:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T12:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/103451\/"},"modified":"2025-05-15T12:04:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T12:04:10","slug":"hbo-max-you-better-be-joking-internet-has-a-field-day-as-max-becomes-hbo-max-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/103451\/","title":{"rendered":"HBO Max: \u2018You better be joking\u2019: Internet has a field day as Max becomes HBO Max (AGAIN) |"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\u2018You It\u2019s time for yet another plot twist; only this time, everybody knows the spoiler!Popular streaming service Max is changing its name \u2013 yet again \u2013 and the *new* branding is (insert some drumroll) going back to being HBO Max<\/a>.\"MaxThe decision was announced on May 14, by Warner Bros. Discovery<\/a> during a presentation in New York. HBO chief executive Casey Bloys announced that the company\u2019s streaming platform, Max, would revert to its previous name, HBO Max. WBD executives emphasized that the move is an attempt to emphasize its strongest offerings.The change restores the recognizable HBO branding, which has been on something of an adventure ever since the early days of streaming services. Max chief marketing officer Shauna Spenley said on Wednesday, \u201cWe all know this industry is cluttered. Streaming has become a lot like fast fashion,\u201d adding, \u201cSo when we think about our competitive advantage, it\u2019s the same one that we\u2019ve had at HBO for the last 50 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

“Max is becoming HBO Max!”<\/p>\n

WBD changed HBO Max\u2019s name to Max in 2023 shortly after WarnerMedia and Discovery merged, creating WBD, in 2022. The company originally rebranded the service as HBO Max in 2020, having pivoted away from the previous name HBO Now, which it announced in 2015.To sum up the chronology \u2013 there was HBO Go (2008), HBO Now (2015), HBO Max (2020), Max (2023) and now, once again, HBO Max (2025).<\/p>\n

Why is Max becoming HBO Max.. again?<\/p>\n

Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said in a statement that the company decided to reintroduce the HBO moniker because it “represents the highest quality in media.” Warner Bros. Discovery isn’t just changing the name of \u201cMax.\u201dAccording to a release posted following the announcement, Warner Bros. Discovery\u2019s streaming business has added 22 million new subscribers over the past year, with a path to 150 million plus by the end of 2026. They credit the work, investment, and refocusing the strategy on programming that is working best, such as HBO, recent box-office movies, docuseries, certain reality series, and Max and local originals.Moreover, the company revealed the decision was driven by consumers wanting quality over quantity when it comes to content. \u201cThe powerful growth we have seen in our global streaming service is built around the quality of our programming. Today, we are bringing back HBO, the brand that represents the highest quality in media, to further accelerate that growth in the years ahead,\u201d CEO David Zaslav said of the change.<\/p>\n

The internet reacts:<\/p>\n

While the reason behind the name change may be business-driven, the internet couldn\u2019t help but poke fun at the to-and-fro ritual of the company! In fact, HBO and Max themselves became quite a sport and took part in the meme-marathon on social media!Quoting one of its extremely popular shows, \u2018Euphoria\u2019, Max called upon its inner Maddy Perez, remarking, \u201cB****, you better be joking!\u201dIn another post, Max shared a GIF of another HBO show, “True Detective,” which includes actor Matthew McConaughey’s character (Detective Rustin “Rust” Cohle) saying, “Everything we’ve ever done or will do we’re gonna do over and over and over again.” The caption for the post reads: “Explaining to my friends I work at HBO Max again.”Keeping up with the relevance of the latest papal conclave, Max made another post, with the streaming service writing: “BREAKING: White smoke was seen coming from the Warner Bros. water tower. A new brand has been chosen.””What do we think?” one of the streaming service’s social media posts, which included a meme from the HBO show “Veep,” said.Max also didn\u2019t forget the evergreen Spider-Man meme and recreated the same with their ever-changing names.To take it a notch further, HBO Max declared, with the photo of Jon Snow, presumably dead (Re: Game of Thrones<\/a> Season 5 Finale), \u201cWhat is dead may never die. HBO Max coming this summer. Same app, new-ish name.\u201dSome other internet users joked about how much time was spent deliberating over the name change. One of them remarked, \u201cIt makes me wanna die thinking how many meetings were held about this one decision,\u201d while another commented, \u201cme explaining how HBO went from HBO Now to HBO Go to HBO Max to Max then back to HBO Max.\u201dOne internet user sort of announced the foreseeable future of HBO Max and said, \u201cCan\u2019t wait until HBO MAX just goes back to being HBO.\u201d Another just asked the folks to \u201cMake up your mind!\u201d Someone else happily admitted, \u201cI never deleted the HBO MAX app.\u201dHowever, perhaps the best bit came from the team of \u2018The Last of Us\u2019, where they shared a photo of a smiling Joel and asked, \u201ccan we bring him back too?\u201dThe name change is slated for this summer.<\/p>\n

8-year-old with rare disease becomes \u2018Iron Man\u2019 for a day<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s time for yet another plot twist; only this time, everybody knows the spoiler!Popular streaming service Max is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3161],"tags":[4311,25127,47693,47687,47688,3082,47692,47690,47691,53,16,15,47689],"class_list":{"0":"post-103451","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-game-of-thrones","9":"tag-hbo-max","10":"tag-hbo-max-history","11":"tag-hbo-max-name-change","12":"tag-hbo-max-rebranding","13":"tag-internet","14":"tag-max-social-media-reactions","15":"tag-new-hbo-max-branding","16":"tag-streaming-service-updates","17":"tag-technology","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-warner-bros-discovery"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114511758886166983","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}