Threads is the latest Twitter competitor to nod to the platform’s visual identity, which is represented by a sky-blue bird. The alternative social platform Mastodon also selected an animal (albeit an extinct one) as its mascot. And both Mastodon and Bluesky, another competitor, were splashed with hues of blue not too distant from Twitter’s.

Ramesh Srinivasan, the director of the University of California Digital Cultures Lab, said the Threads logo is a shrewd reference to a different piece of Twitter’s iconography: the @ symbol, which appears before each Twitter user’s personal handle and has become deeply associated with the platform.

“It’s basically saying, Hey, we’re Twitter,” he said. “It’s a clever interface in what it expresses, but I don’t find it visually alluring.”

Many Twitter users have also criticized the logo — comparing it to the number 666 and a strand of pubic hair — perhaps out of allegiance to their preferred platform.

Mr. Valdés Olmos said that logos often spark intense reactions online because each can be a convenient outlet for a person’s feelings about a brand. “The logo is the first thing you tap, the first thing you get greeted by,” he said. “That makes it an easy target for a lot of folks.”

Mr. Evamy is confident the Threads logo will weather its round of online teasing. He thinks the abstract design may even be more durable than Twitter’s blue bird, which is rendered in a pictorial style that he said now feels dated.

“If Twitter were starting again, they would probably want to have something this good for their own logo,” he said.