On the “Status Tax”
Verified Twitter users are atwitter on Twitter. Whither Our Blue Checkmark? Some have even come up with innovative ways to preserve the semblance of the Blue without — how else does one say it? — “paying for it.”
Journos and influencers — all 423,000 of them — are about to lose their most honored and revered blue checkmark if they don’t subscribe to fund Elon’s sulfurous, incarnadine lust. It separates the hoi from the polloi. I mean, who among us really wants a true democratic experience after all, right? A verified blue checkmark is not unlike being given an ermine robe and scepter, for those who go in for that sort of thing (Averted Gaze). With that in mind, it is more than a little delicious to watch so many “achievers” oscillating so wildly about the Twitter War Room announcement.
Who among the cognoscenti will pay and who will not pay to retain their Status? And — more to the point — is it still a “status” thing if you are — how else does one put it? — paying for it? The verification subscription model can only be properly construed under the category of “status tax.” Sort of like a Hollywood star on the “Walk of Fame.” “You want to pay for this? I don’t,” Kara Swisher announced, frankly, on Pivot. “I am a content creator on Twitter. I make it a better place. I am painting their fucking fence. I am not paying them a dime for my verification.” Brava!
Swisher, who can definitely afford to pay the subscription fee but won’t, has a point, to be sure. But many journos with a smaller imprint simply cannot afford the subscription cost. Will their publications pick up the tab?
The argument goes, Why charge professionals — journalists, moreover! — who provide free content for your platform that attracts eyeballs and engagement and therefore increases revenues? It boggles the imagination. Could a lot of this, perhaps, be Musk giving the stinkface to the elite media types that he loves to trigger?
Heaven forfend! Terry Nguyen of Dirt breaks it down:
Verified users will soon have to pay $19.99 per month to keep their coveted blue checks, as part of a new Twitter Blue subscription plan. Musk has set a hard November 7 deadline for its launch, according to The Verge. Employees are under threat of losing their jobs if they fail to deliver on time. Once the new Twitter Blue feature is implemented, verified users will have 90 days to pay up. Aside from this being a dig at the Blue Check Media Elite that Musk so clearly despises, it’s a bet that Twitter’s core demographic of “power users” — people whose attentions and livelihoods are shackled to the platform — will pay decent money to keep this badge of honor.
Some probably will — but it’s uncertain whether this move will generate significant profit. National news outlets might start covering verification fees for their top reporters. Vice’s Brad Esposito predicts that media companies might develop “internally leveled structures around who does and doesn’t get” their checkmark covered for. The rest will have to forsake the blue check.
Oh, forsake the blue, media brothers and sisters! Eschew the Blue!
There is also another media perspective; the simplest one. Many journos rely on the verification process to prove that in this present age of disinformation they are in fact who they say they are online. The “status tax” in this case is not just prohibitive to many journos, but quite possibly corrupting to democracy and weakening of the free press.
And then, more cynically, there is the populist reasoning in favor of the “status tax.” “The right has for years lashed out at ‘blue checks,’ whom in their eyes represent elitist gatekeepers who control the conversation, even though many conservatives also don blue badges,” Oliver Darcy argues. “Taking away those free blue checks away, and the air of authority they give upon the profile they are appended to, will certainly delight some conservatives.”
And, one might add, many progressives.
Into the darkness of the far-right media eco-system. (Alex Shephard/TNR)
“By season eight, we were making a million dollars per episode; by season ten we were making even more,” Matthew Perry of Friends writes. “We were making $1,100,040 an episode, and we were asking to do fewer episodes. Morons, all of us.” (Amazon/Variety)
In previous ages a man like Peter Beard would have been lionized. I’m glad that age has passed. (Raquel Laneri/NYPost)
Migos rapper Takeoff was killed. (LAT)
Kara Swisher and Todd Galloway talk about Elon Musk’s first few days as owner of Twitter. (Pivot)
Former Time magazine editor and macher Walter Isaacson is now a Musk Whisperer on Squawk Box. “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!” (CNBC)
Reporter creates social media accounts for fake Americans to show "how we're being targeted" with disinformation. (CBSNews)
How a 95-Year-Old Grandmother Nabbed a Latin Grammy Best New Artist Nomination. (Billboard)
“Report for the World places early- and mid-career journalists in newsrooms around the world to help them expand in-depth coverage of specialized beats.” (VOANews)