Why are we called Whyd? The Answer you’ve all been waiting for!

Many of you have asked the excellent question: Why is Whyd called Whyd? Most people also wonder how you pronounce our name. But before we tell you the answer, it is worth noting that in English Whyd is the contraction of “Why did,” as used in the question “Why did you name your start up Whyd?” Yet in today’s online world where apostrophes are as rare as a non-racist YouTube comment, Whyd has become the way that people phrase (usually rhetorical) questions about life in general. So when we track #whyd on Twitter, we end up with a very broad range of results from the interesting (and obviously highly educated) Twitternet population. Sometimes we find some gems, so before we tell you the secret of our name, here are a few highlights of how people use “whyd:”

From complaining about the weather:

To worrying about the future availability of sexy celebrities:

To incoherent catholic-wannabe 8-year-olds:

To chill, accepting lesbians: 

To self-deprecating, Twitter-addicted procrastinators: 

To defensive, bitter Lakers’ fans:

To clumsy, perfectionist beauty queens:

To the incredibly lazy:

(Is it us or does everyone just use Twitter to complain?)

But, yet, after all that, sometimes — sometimes — there is light, even if that light is a little paranoid:

 
Now that we got that out of the way (and you see how tricky it is to be managing our social media…) let’s address the pronunciation of our name first. It is not Whyd like “weed,” the green plant that is impossible to find in Paris. It is not Whyd like “wid” as in “widget.” It is pronounced Whyd like “wide” as in the world wide web. And therein we start to understand the meaning of Whyd. 

Whyd is a combination of Wide and Why. The “wide” is the breadth of new music coming online everyday, from new artists experimenting with new sounds to delight our ears in a never-ending sea of sound waves expanding like tectonic plates quaking our souls. But as there is a ton of new music, not all of it is good, not all of it moves us. There is a reason that we share certain songs, sounds that touch us. We share selected morsels for their quality, that is the “why.” In a way, Whyd is simply the rule of quality over quantity.

Never stop jamming!  

23rd April 2013