The “Pay the $8” Crew Is Mad They Just Paid for an Emoji
Well, there’s a new bad take in town and it’s coming from the new blue checkmarks. Back when having a blue checkmark meant that you were who you said you were, those without it felt “less than” for some reason. (More specifically, they projected their insecurities onto others, weirdly assuming those with a check felt more than.) As someone who applied for verification simply because my job is a public one that sometimes comes with trolls impersonating me, it just provided proof that my account was my own. That’s all it ever meant!
The blue check was something that a lot of people (especially journalists and freelance ones more than most) used to prove their credibility. You have a checkmark and it shows that you clearly have worked for publications of merit. It was also helpful for politicians, celebrities, and outlets to have them just as a means of clarification. (It seems every celebrity has a story of someone impersonating them in DMs to scam fans out of money.) But then Elon Musk bought Twitter and turned a system meant to clarify things into some weird social justice issue, declaring that the “people” should have checkmarks too, not just the “elite” of the platform. Which is funny given that his solution is paying for it.
Waste money if you want, I’m good
The definition of unintentional comedy comes from an account called “Catturd” that seems to exist for the sole purpose of licking Elon Musk’s boots. This person is so mad that celebrities refuse to give $8 to Musk’s meltdown. They all think that those of us who were legacy verified who now refuse to pay for what we had (again) for free are doing it because of ego, because we’re “arrogant elitist snobs” instead of people just pointing out that a man baby with too much money bought a social media platform because people were being mean to him. And now he needs money and wants us to pay for what we already had for free.
You all can bend to the whims of a child but I’m actually good on my end, thanks.
It’s not just Catturd, there are so many people genuinely outraged that the thing they viewed as a status symbol is now worthless, and that those previously verified accounts don’t have any interest in paying for the thing they clearly craved so badly.
It’s just reinforcing their warped narrative that we thought they made us better than them.
The blue check is not entirely worthless, to be fair. According to Elon, only those paying their $8 will soon show up in the “For You” tab on Twitter, and they’ll have increased visibility on the site. We used to have the choice as to who we follow and why. Now, Twitter Blue just highlights tweets from people I don’t want to see. That’s not the “freedom” Musk preached about. That’s forcing something on me I don’t want. Congratulations to the new checks on paying $8 to force people to actively ignore them, I guess.
I give this system a week before Elon Musk forces someone else to fix yet another one of his meltdown mistakes.
(Featured image: Columbia Pictures)
Have a tip we should know? tips@themarysue.com
