Twitter really has been acting up ever since Elon Musk took over, and April 20 was no exception. On April 19, Twitter announced that the legacy blue checkmarks would be no more, stripping anyone who hadn’t paid for Twitter Blue of their verification status.
Don’t believe me?! Go check for yourself. Stars like Justin Beiber, Kylie Jenner, Christiano Ronaldo, and even Pope Francis’ account look just like the fan page you made for One Direction in 5th Grade. Honestly, it’s the Hunger Games out there, who will be the last one standing with a verification badge?!
While most of us aren’t personally impacted by this, verification is kind of an important thing to celebrities and public figures. That little blue checkmark built credibility and reassured the public that the account they were looking at was not run by bots or an impersonator. Not to be dramatic, but once you had to earn the check, but now if you really wanted to… you could easily add it to a birthday wish list.
Now, setting aside this clear cash grab, our favorite celebrities are making light of the situation, and like always Twitter users are losing their minds — nice to know some things will never change.
Celebrities: they’re officially just like us.