Photo by Alexander Mils
Oh god, I’m writing about Elon.
I’d hoped to avoid this. There’s been entirely too much coverage of Elon Musk and his purchase of Twitter, and I get it: It’s where activists and journalists do a lot of their kibbitzing. It’s still been a lot.
So I’d planned to avoid talking about Elon, or Twitter, or the plan to charge $8 a month to get coveted “blue check” verified status. It means I’ll lose my blue check. I don’t care. Oh, yeah, it was a tiny bit of an ego boost, I can’t deny it. But that was really all the good I got out of it. Maybe some people were more interested in what I had to say? I never got that impression.
But…
The thing that keeps coming up in the whole “pay for verification” plan is that it’s being sold as some sort of triumph of democracy.
Like:
And:
And:
On Saturday, the company had said in notes accompanying a new update to the Twitter app that the paid verification system was now a feature of the website’s subscription service, Twitter Blue.
“Power to the people,” the announcement said. “Your account will get a blue check mark, just like the celebrities, companies, and politicians you already follow.”
There’s not much to say here, except maybe:
* When everybody can buy celebrity status, nobody’s a celebrity.
* It’s a uniquely American idea, this notion that you can buy your way into a more democratic community. And it’s probably false.
* And you also probably can’t buy either celebrity or democracy for $8 a month.
Indeed, it’s not really a blow against the “elites” to pay that $8 a month to the world’s richest man. It’s just … more of the same.
Now I’m going to go back to trying not to care.