I would pay for my Blue Tick. But my caveat: if the blue tick is available to anybody who wishes to pay, then it will become a mere bauble, not venerable.
Only if the verification process were to have an element of real scrutiny, would paying to advertise make sense. The key fact is that most folks on Twitter do not create original stuff that needs any of this facilitation. So, some of the stuff that he is proffering as sweet lollipops to make you pay—if you’re a creator—doesn’t make too much sense.
The 10 per cent of people on Twitter who actually end up being 92 per cent of content creators must matter, because Musk knows that it’s these verified creators who weave the universe that is Twitter. That is the platform “his people” currently gather to gawk, lurk or infrequently respond to. Without that, there’ll be no basis for any advertising revenue. If Musk hopes to be a great marketeer, he needs the crowds and the baying troll-laden mobs to maintain traction, tactility and trends, but he most certainly needs his creators more.
How much to pay, is still up in the air. Yet, only if that elusive tick retains its touch-me-not little sniff of exclusivity, is it worth it.
Dilip Cherian, India’s image guru & resident iconoclast, is best found on Twitter @DilipTheCherian
“I’m not prepared to feed the negativity”
By Jamal Shaikh
Education was definitely also on Chum’s mind, evident from her multiple degrees—she has a BA in English from Jawaharlal Nehru University, a B.Ed from Siang Royal Academy, Pasighat, an MA in sociology from IGNOU, and a post-graduation degree from YMCA in Delhi!
With a bank employee for a father, a nurse for a mother, an older sister and two younger brothers, Chum was an utter tomboy till she discovered beauty pageants when she was 16 and participated. When she won a car (still in use back home) one competition, she saw potential. After all, she had always dreamed of acting, having grown up watching Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan classics.