Elon Not Mad At New York Times YOU ARE MAD AT NEW YORK TIMES!
Elon's funtime Twitter follies continue.
If you have a blue checkmark by your name on Twitter, are you a person who matters, or are you some Nazi who borrows eight dollars per month from their mom so they can post hot takes under some kind of name like Poop Cheese?
Elon Musk has decided that no longer should you be able to distinguish between those two types of checkmarks, the people who are notable in their fields, and the people who are stupid enough to give him money.
“Lmao. Another empty promise from Elon, substituted instead with dumb guy “pls like me my dudes” vibes and, ultimately, laziness”
— Jared Holt (@Jared Holt) 1680470220
That's right. Now, if you click on a person's blue checkmark, it says that "This account is verified because it's subscribed to Twitter Blue or is a legacy verified account." You know, just one of the options, all of which are EQUALLY VALID, DAMMIT.
Of course, if you still would like to differentiate between the two, either in order to protect yourself from Elon's trolls, or just because you like to make fun of people on Twitter by saying "LOL you paid for Twitter," it appears this Chrome extension still works.
This came after a weekend where supposedly all the "legacy" checkmarks were going to go away starting April 1, and if you wanted to still be "verified" (which is now meaningless) you'd have to give Elon eight dollars. Elon is apparently very stupid and thought that hordes of people would change their minds and decide to start giving him money if he backed them up against a wall juuuust enough. This clearly did not happen, despite how his ideological fellow travelers were pretty sure people would be totally into it.
LeBron and Patrick Mahomes wouldn't do it. Chrissy Teigen said STFU. Jason Isbell said STFU. All those journalists on Twitter, the ones who in the small minds of needy losers like Elon are some kind of gatekeeping blue checkmark mafia that derives its entire reason for being from having a blue checkmark, the ones Elon's fanboys resent so hard? They are saying things like "yeet the fucker," about their blue checkmarks.
The White House wouldn't do it, because of how verification isn't real or meaningful anymore. All it says is "I am a big dumb who buys Elon the equivalent of a meal deal at Mickey Ds every month because he told me too and again because I am a big dumb."
The Washington Post wouldn't do it. And then the New York Times said it wouldn't do it, and wouldn't reimburse its employees for it. (It's more expensive for businesses, of course.) Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh that made Elon BIG MAD. So he unverified the New York Times .
Twitter removed the “verified” badge from the New York Times’ main account on Sunday, a move that billionaire owner Elon Musk pushed for overnight after learning that the news organization would not pay for its Twitter Blue service.
MAD BIG MAD.
The move continues Musk’s years-long grudge against U.S. journalists who have reported critically on him, and it will raise the risks of impersonation.
Well yes.
“Seems totally fine.”
— Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan Sardarizadeh) 1680507639
It also contradicts an internal plan, first reported by the Times on Thursday, to keep the badges on for the 10,000 most-followed organizations, regardless of whether they paid.
Like on some level they already knew it would be a failure.
The Washington Post says it appears only a "few dozen" accounts have actually lost their checkmarks. The rest have that stupid new message, as if people can't tell the difference, and as if people will ever stop publicly making fun of people who obviously paid for Twitter.
But stop writing in the newspaper that Elon is mad, though, he is not mad:
“Also, their feed is the Twitter equivalent of diarrhea. It’s unreadable. They would have far more real followers if they only posted their top articles. Same applies to all publications.”
— Elon Musk (@Elon Musk) 1680412564
LOL OK. It's almost like he's having an AI write his witty tweets for him. The prompt could be "Write zinger tweets in the voice of an intensely gullible guy with major divorced dad energy who has all the money in the world but still can't get anybody to genuinely like him for who he is."
But don't worry, we're sure Elon's about to make a decision on all this that will make everybody stop laughing at him and finally recognize his brilliance once and for all and even probably make us all sexually attracted to him, too.
For sure.
[ Washington Post ]
Follow Evan Hurst on Twitter right here
And once that doesn't exist, I'm also giving things a go at the Mastodon (@evanhurst@newsie.social) and at Post!
Have you heard that Wonkette DOES NOT EXIST without your donations? Please hear it now, and if you have ever enjoyed a Wonkette article, throw us some bucks, or better yet, SUBSCRIBE!
Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons .
Is Elon still holding emergency staff meetings to find out why his account has such low engagement?
I guess some people like Twitter and the concept. Not me, I don't give a rat's arse.But I will help.
Elmo, dude, you are not gonna make any more money with the blue check nonsense. Likely will lose even more. So knock it off.
Looks like you are losing $1 billion a month. What you will admit to anyway.So here is the way to make money.
Do everything you can to make the user content fabulous, wonderfully entertaining, informing, happy, a joy to watch.Get everyone that people like, even if it's just a few people.Artists, performers, writers, actors, scientists, celebrities, business, sports figures, entertainers and heros. Avoid elected officials unless it is the real news of the day. Avoid politics. Even nobodies if they are smart and interesting.Make Twitter FUN to be on. Make the platform half ass intelligent so people can watch who they want.And never, never YOU decide that for them.
This way you will get more users spending more time on Twitter.Then guess what happens next?Advertisers want to peddle their stuff to them. So more $$$ for you.
Avoid politics and if you push your political views on people, you may as well shut down Twitter tomorrow. Cause that is the big fail.
You're welcome.