HBO trolls its own HBO Max name change with “Friends, Game of Thrones, Euphoria” memes: ‘Bitch, you better be joking’

Warner Bros. Discovery is hopping aboard the meme train following its recent announcement that its streaming app, Max, will be returning to its previous name, HBO Max, sometime this summer. 

Shortly after the rebranding was announced at WBD’s 2025 upfront presentation, HBO’s social media handles quickly began poking fun at the new (old?) name change using an arsenal of hilarious screenshots, videos, and gifs from programs like Friends, True Detective, The Wire, Euphoria, and Veep. 

HBO Max celebrated its resurrection by posting a clip of Kit Harington’s Game of Thrones character Jon Snow dramatically coming back to life. “What is dead may never die,” it wrote on X. “HBO Max coming this summer. Same app, new-ish name.”

Another image posted by HBO showcased the full timeline of the app’s many different names before eventually reverting back to HBO Max. Below it, the company included a screenshot of Alexa Demi’s Euphoria character Maddy saying: “Bitch, you better be joking.” HBO then added, “What she said.”

It also posted a scene from The Wire in which Idris Elba’s character Stringer declares that “we’re back up” one again. “Put the word out there,” it captioned the clip.

The official Max account, however, had some thoughts about the name change in its own True Detective-themed TikTok featuring season 1 star, Matthew McConaughey. “Someone told me once ‘time is a flat circle,” the actor says in the clip. “Everything we’ve ever done or will do we’re going to do over and over and over again.” 

Above the video, Max simply wrote: “Explaining to my friends I work at HBO Max again.”

Max also shared a pair of screenshots that saw Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ character Selina Meyer celebrating her own rebranding on Veep. It added, “What do we think?” It also, hilariously, posted a gif on X depicting an Uno reverse card in honor of the news.

And, if that wasn’t enough, the company also dropped a cheeky Friends reference at the end of its press release that featured David Schwimmer’s Ross shouting the infamous line: “We were on a break!” 

President and CEO of Streaming JB Perrette and Chairman and CEO of HBO and Max Content Casey Bloys shed some light on the change during the upfront.  

“With the course we are on and strong momentum we are enjoying, we believe HBO Max far better represents our current consumer proposition,” Bloys explained. “And it clearly states our implicit promise to deliver content that is recognized as unique and, to steal a line we always said at HBO, worth paying for.”

Perrette added that the company aims to “continue to focus on what makes us unique” as it moves forward under the familiar title. “Not everything for everyone in a household, but something distinct and great for adults and families,” he said. “It’s really not subjective, not even controversial – our programming just hits different.”

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly