One of the world's most storied media companies has gloriously rebranded itself as Tronc

After 168 years in publishing, the storied media operation once known as Tribune Publishing will now be known as Tronc. Having recently fended off a hostile takeover from Gannett, the publisher of the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times today united under a proud new banner — one that looks similar to, but is legally distinct from, the popular film Tron. What is a Tronc? Why, it's "a content curation and monetization engine," according to the press release. Sure! It is definitely a real organization and not something that is going to sell to an Asian telecom company for $100 in the spring of 2018.

Tronc is also a very funny word and let's talk about that for a minute!

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Tribune's name derived from the Roman officials whose job it was to protect average citizens from the unfair actions of patrician magistrates. Tronc, on the other hand, is the sound of a millennial falling down the stairs. (It is apparently a portmanteau of Tribune Online Content. The company styles it lowercase, because that's the way that teens are talking on Slack these days, but we are not about to be led down that path today!)

Anyway just listen to what people are saying about Tronc!

Junk in the tronc

— Reyhan Harmanci (@harmancipants) June 2, 2016

You need to ask the question: is your content Tronc-worthy?

— Prof. Jeff Tronc (@ProfJeffJarviss) June 2, 2016

[dipshit millennial consultant unveils TRONC name & logo to Tribune execs]

MILLENNIAL: that’ll be thirty million dollars

— Jason O. Gilbert (@gilbertjasono) June 2, 2016

It's just like they said: you can't spell 'contort' without tronc

— Rick Klau (@rklau) June 2, 2016

@LaurenGoode tronc, n: the final stage of a newspaper before death

— nilay patel (@reckless) June 2, 2016

tronc-itis: the paralysis you feel when you are keeping typing and deleting all your tronc tweets

— Angel Rodriguez (@ajrod) June 2, 2016

honk 4 tronc

— ɹɐʌɐɥɔɾɐ (@ajchavar) June 2, 2016

Not even close to tired of TRONC tweets

— TRONC TRONC TRONC (@mat) June 2, 2016

Trump/tronc 2016

— Farhad Manjoo (@fmanjoo) June 2, 2016

Errbody in da club gettin' TRONC.

— Peter Frost (@peterfrost) June 2, 2016

If you wanted to signify the pathetic nasal honks of the last dying dinosaur, "tronc" would be a pretty good word.

— Quentin Hardy (@qhardy) June 2, 2016

"TRONC TRONC" is how Law and Order starts, right?

— Linda Holmes (@nprmonkeysee) June 2, 2016

God I hope tronc buys Gawker

— nilay patel (@reckless) June 2, 2016

Is tronc pronounced like GIF or JIF?

— Hunter Walk (@hunterwalk) June 2, 2016

Legit thought Tronc was some kind of #GoT spoiler leaking into my feed.

— Amy B Wang (@amybwang) June 2, 2016

If you search Twitter's GIF button for "tronc," this is what you get pic.twitter.com/qyubp8OjII

— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) June 2, 2016

HOLD THE TRUNK
HOLD THR TRUNK
HOLD TRUNK
TRONC

— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) June 2, 2016

the future of media pic.twitter.com/bvPkbOwDGD

— ♥︎ (@yurivictor) June 2, 2016

The age of Tronc is upon us. Tronc you for reading.

Correction, June 3rd: This article has been updated to reflect the fact that Tronc was most recently known as Tribune Publishing, not Tribune Media Company. Tribune Media Company spun off its publishing unit in 2014.

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