It is quite impressive to turn an accidental status symbol like the Twitter checkmark into a mark of absolute derision.
The Twitter checkmark was meant only to verify certain people after a lawsuit by Tony La Russa had occurred, being introduced in 2009. It was meant to certify against impersonation, and it was an almost meaningless tag next to a name. Some of the people who qualified for this program against impersonation varied from high-ranking celebrities like Kanye West or Lady Gaga to journalists who had maybe only written two articles in their entire lifetime. Many new media "celebs" that mostly had their work in YouTube or streaming generally had a tough time qualifying for it, although the stakes were fairly low all things considered.
When Elon was finalized into becoming the owner of Twitter, it became apparent that Elon's view on the checkmark came from a very different place. While he had certainly qualified for the mark, many of his opponents also did too. The choice to offer the checkmark as a thing you could purchase only really makes sense if you see it as a status symbol.
Was it?
Although I have hardly been on Twitter during its best years, I never really saw blue checks that differently. Blue checkmarked users tend to be of a higher social class or express odder opinions than the normal user, but it's the bias of having a signifier that this person is important that makes it stick out more. Truth be told, it was something I very much saw as a tool and I felt like it should be extended to more people but it was never something I would personally see as something valued as a normal user of the site.
Of course, the problem of offering checkmarks as a thing you can purchase for 8 dollars immediately became apparent the first time they were offered. Insulin is free now. I could go into all the issues that arose with offering checkmarks, but as of writing in April 2023 the checkmark has mutated into a strain that I find inherently interesting and certainly predictable from the start. And yet it's the psychology of those with these purchased checkmarks I'm interested in, and how Elon used it against the user dril that cemented its inherent UnValue.
Post 4/20, when Elon exploded a rocket and wiped legacy checkmarks visibly off Twitter (although examining data in the system just shows that those users are still classified as verified legacy users since the system isn't designed to mass-unflag every verified user) it became apparent that anyone with a blue checkmark had bought one and thus was supporting Elon Musk. Not Twitter itself as a platform, because it's impossible to ignore how the site has gradually been bent to magnetize attention to the guy who owns the site. I don't mean this in a figurative way- it was shown in the source code that was shared by Elon himself and from inside sources working on Twitter itself that Elon wanted to prioritize his presence after getting less attention than Barack Obama during the World Cup.
What Twitter Blue, which was a subscription service originally offered by Twitter during its last days under the original management, offers you is not even remotely a good deal. Even as Elon has appended more features to it, it becomes apparent that none of it really works well for a platform that brevity was the entire point. Longer posts? These don't work well within the timeline view. Less ads? I'm still seeing ads, so clearly that's not a real thing you'd pay for. Editing posts? Mayhaps this is useful, but the culture is so used to not having one that it really doesn't matter and art posts to my knowledge can't be replaced with a fixed image. Priority in replies and timelines? This has a myriad of issues that stem almost entirely from the user base and how people work. Paying to have your comments prioritized isn't actually helpful for sorting useful or interesting commentary and the status symbol effect that Elon has actually placed on the checkmark now just makes it an instant "kick me" sign.
One additional negative feature you also gain as a Twitter Blue subscriber is the inability to change your username or profile picture without losing verified status. Because nobody does seasonal names or changes their avatars ever on social media, I guess. You can gain it back if Twitter deems it's not impersonation, although with a dwindling staff count that's heavily overworked, if you're not a person that's worth fretting over you will lose your status. You actually have less mobility and expression as a subscriber to Twitter Blue than the average user over something pretty basic. Great service. No notes. Well, a couple community notes could be used for the massive amount of disinformation that's now on Twitter and of which you can boost with just 8 dollars. I'm sure this won't be a problem at all.
With such a bevy of useless features and many more in the works, it ultimately just has no fucking use to anyone who isn't Team Elon. As such, the psychology of someone who buys a blue checkmark for 8 bucks is going to be someone who aligns themselves with Elon's politics and humor- which to be frank, suck and are hypocritical and contradictory beyond belief. It's a philosophy for losers, which proposes ideas and values that can mostly be agreed on but are changed when the holder of those ideas and values is challenged or criticized. One of the more interesting statements coming off these neo checkmarks is "paying for free speech"- free speech itself is such a meaningless term since the idea of it is too broad and warped to whatever the person wants it to be. It means nothing unless it's actually true, and it is too subject to abuse if it's actually true. What the guy actually paid for is for their bigoted views to come up first in any discussion they decide to have.
Blocking the blue, in the resulting fallout, becomes the only moral way forward. It's the only way to actually equalize out the people who actually add to discussion and it doesn't come with the baggage of having to engage with someone who shelled out 8 bucks for a blue sticker. It's not so much that absence of a checkmark becomes a status symbol in of itself, it's just that people can clearly smell snake oil. It also comes with the benefit of blocking every advertiser- a thing the platform still hasn't managed to combat in any meaningful way somehow.
Since nobody of which Twitter actually derives any value from actually wanted to keep their checkmark, it became a useless status symbol- a mark that you're a mark. So Elon said he was gonna front money for people who had openly said they weren't going to pay and now you have those same celebs having to be upfront about the fact that they had not asked for this nor did they approve of it. LeBron's team actively turned it down but were still forced to bear it according to Elon's wishes.
Which feels like some sort of fraud? To have a bunch of people you say bought your product that vehemently did not and would not? So naturally, this turn of marking dril with the blue checkmark is maybe the most interesting thing to come out of this because by doing that, Elon inherently unravels any pretense of value. Dril was one of the main people who spoke out against the new checkmark system and was asked to speak on it. It's absolutely a punishment because dril wants you to block every blue check on Twitter.
So like, that being a punishment for being against the entire idea just kind of proves it's not worth anything, right? Nobody wants to really block dril, but the plugins and codes to do so will include him in the list of every other blue check. So ultimately for the audience of people who already don't see value in it, which appears to be most people given the fallout of this was a net gain of +28 subscribers, it just means again that it has UnValue. Sticking it onto your profile immediately puts you on a blacklist for an audience that cares about actually trying to use the platform as intended.
It's funny, all things considered. I created this website because of the news that Elon was acquiring Twitter but I haven't really discussed the matter until now. I don't really have that strong of a connection to Twitter but I do find myself on it a lot and it's mostly because the art and jokes I find on there are good- but it is also the social media that actively makes me feel the worst since it incentivizes you to come across material that makes you upset. As the Elon era of Twitter continues to go on, I just find it utterly baffling that you'd pay 44 billion to just own the site. Elon goes one step further to make it worse- not for me, but for him specifically. He's mostly lost money and favor with the public that once saw him as the real-world Tony Stark. He has devoted fans, sure, but they are largely the kind of people that you don't really want in your corner to begin with. They are enchanted by the idea of success because it's not something they really understand.
I can't fault Elon fans for finding Elon the epitome of American values though- he takes credit for things he didn't make or invent, he treats his workers like shit, and he is clearly not very smart and despite massive wealth and power, constantly gets owned by people with less. If that's not America defined, I don't know what is.
