Twitter pseudo-elites are crying because their blue check mark has been taken from them, and they’re offended that, like the plebes, they must pay for the privilege of being verified now. Whatever is smaller than the world’s tiniest violin is playing sad music for them. If you’re hearing a mechanical whine from the HVAC system, that’s what their laments and pain sound like.
When Twitter began, everyone, regular or celeb, jumped onto the service. For the regular folks, they could have conversations with people they admired or watch conversations between people they admired. For celebs, they could get direct, unfiltered access to their fans and collaborate with people they would have otherwise had a difficult time meeting.
Twitter’s main advantage is that it is a monstrously huge email list where a celeb with 10 million followers only has to now pay $8 per month to access them. The conversations are public, immediate, and unfiltered. Conversely, the regular person can follow and speak to anyone. And now that same person can be verified and enjoy the benefits of owning their own name and having access to upgraded features. (READ MORE: Mister Rogers, Elon Musk, and Public Broadcasting’s Twitter Brat-Fit)
Now that Elon has yanked check marks, everyone is complaining: “But I create free content. Why should I have to pay?” This is true for everyone, and I have long said that the best way to create value on Twitter (something the Lefties never cared about) is to monetize everyone. That is, if Joe with 900 followers loves a certain brand, he can hawk it to his people and if his people like the brand and buy it from his mentions, he gets an automatic cut. That way, producers have incentives.
As it stands now, Elon Musk is attempting to get the business into the black. One way to do that is to make users pay for verification. Users may still use the platform for free, mind you, they’re just not verified. Users will have to be more cautious about following people. There will be difficulty with satire accounts (but that’s always been true) and celebs won’t get the same perks they’re used to.
Old Twitter sought celebs as a way to legitimatize the platform. But that wasn’t true for the first year or two. Everyone was the same on Twitter and it all went well. When Twitter introduced verified accounts, the leftists in charge of the place verified every tiny, two-bit lefty outfit and left mid-tier right-leaning celebs with multiple thousands of followers without verification. In many cases, the workers at Twitter were just being petty and vindictive.
The low- and mid-tier no-talent ass-clowns on Twitter, also known as “journalists,” are the most upset about this turn of events. Their check mark was an external validation of the way they saw themselves: more important and better than the people they were reporting on and to. Their Sturm und Drang is comically over the top. Maybe they’re sensitive because direct reporting via Twitter both by independent journalists and average citizens is putting them out of business ala Buzzfeed News.
Eventually, some of these folks will pay up. Some won’t. It matters not. Twitter will hum along and maybe get closer to solvency, which is clearly Elon Musk’s goal. He is, after all, a businessman.
Meanwhile, the people stuck at the nerd table in high school will continue to vent their embarrassing bitterness on the very platform that torments them.
READ MORE:
Elon Musk No Longer Bans ‘Deadnaming’ on Twitter, and the Media Is Angry
