The Twitter Blue Checkmark

Apologies to those who wake early on Monday mornings with rapt anticipation of my latest scribbling. I can’t say I was too busy over the weekend to get to this necessary work, but I was a little busy. Not with other work, mind you, but with the ups and downs of this sixth decade of existence.

The Twitter Blue Checkmark

I find myself envious of readers for whom the above four words are without meaning, as this conveys that they are blessedly free from the toxins of Twitter and its foul extremes. I am not. I enjoy Twitter, and use it for that enjoyment and as a means to amplify my written work.

In the olden days (pre Elon Musk), Twitter had some sorcery for verifying the identity of account-holders, and this was it:

After undergoing whatever process it was that the Twitter Mandarins determined, a person—usually a famous person or a member of the press—was granted this checkmark. As I gaze upon it, there is little doubt to me that it is white, but since it was devised in order to in some manner diminish the likelihood of misinformation, it quite naturally became know as the “blue” checkmark. But I digress.

The Blue (White) Checkmark found its way next to the handles of the high and mighty, the movers and shakers of our entertainment and press (but I repeat myself) industries, and it was a coveted prize for those who attained it (though to a person, they deny emotionally). The mark signified status within an internet hosted forum devoted to the creation and sustainment of status. The adults were in charge and the children went about their Twitter play unverified and check-less. I was among the benighted many who did not have a checkmark, as I was not fearful of anyone trying to pose as me on Twitter, as my corners there are deranged UVA sports fandom and advocating for great sums of money to be spent on the Navy, neither of which are important enough to require copy-cats.

Did I mention that getting the checkmark was free? This will be important later.

Elon Musk then came along and in a spectacularly expensive vanity play, scraped up enough cash to buy Twitter. Musk’s Twitter presence up to that time managed to create two warring camps among the Twitter warring camps, one of which saw him as a free-speech absolutist who would bring freedom and sanity to Twitters bias against conservatives (yes—I do believe Twitter was biased against conservatives). The other camp cowered in fear of this odd mix of authoritarian/libertarian/fat-cat who now owned what they considered to be their playground. The fight was on.

Musk threatened the blue-checks from the get-go, in that he asserted that the status claimed and gained by the mark should be paid for. This fairly straightforward assertion of common sense was greeted by the intelligentsia as a crime against humanity, that PAYING for their mark was WHOLLY beneath them. Musk went afoul of logic though, by creating a new blue-check that cost money—but that did not have anything approaching the previous set of identity verifications. What he DID provide with the new blue check were additional features. You know, you get what you pay for.

At this point (a couple of months ago), I signed up for the mark. Not because it trips the algorithm into thinking my tweets are more important than others—although it does this. Not because it allows me to type longer tweets (which I love), but it does this. I decided to pay $8 a month for the great privilege of being able to edit my tweets once I posted them. NOTHING was as frustrating in old Twitter as making a typo in a tweet that was broadcast to the world because of one’s own lack of care in proofreading prior to posting. You’d throw up whatever wisdom was in your head, and then seconds later see that you spelled “there” “their”. Or at least, I did. It drove me crazy that my only recourse was to delete the Tweet and then repost it if it were warranted.

I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. I don’t gamble. I don’t run around with strange women. I don’t spend profligately. So I THINK I can be forgiven for spending a fraction of my income on something I enjoy that gives me more enjoyment. And so, I am a Blue(White) Check subscriber at Twitter. As such, I — and others like me — are now catching a little shade. From whom, you ask? From the Old Twitter Blue Checks who had their little mark of status removed from them by the awful Mr. Musk.

We nouveau Blue(White) Checks have “fallen for Musk’s trick”. We are “authoritarian fanboi’s”. We are “dupes”. We read daily these kinds of things, typed by previous holders of the mark, who spend considerable portions of their day complaining about Musk and Twitter and its Decline. The irony of their incessant complaining being broadcast unaltered to their followers on the very service that they complain about seems lost on them.

There are even efforts afoot among those most offended by Musk’s actions to urge people to “unfollow” people like me, people who were stupid enough to buy the mark. Again—it doesn’t matter that I am receiving VALUE for my money—I am just a dumb rube who paid for what THEY previously got FREE. The only problem is that I did not VALUE what they got FREE. I VALUE the edit feature.

So here we are, with yet another thing to divide us and a really efficient means for transmitting that division. Never mind that this all of this takes place on what is effectively an online seventh grade lunchroom.

In Praise of the Backroom

This tweet got my attention this weekend:

I rise in favor of “the backroom”, and I truly believe “the backroom” gets a bad shake, especially from ink-stained scribblers of the press, who believe that—you know—actual reporting—is too hard and that they must be spoon fed information. Human beings are often jerks, and they are often COSMIC jerks during negotiations of any kind. Negotiations about great matters of state invariably start from hardened positions, and any outcome worth a damn means that both sides will deviate therefrom. Our modern, UFC-style politics—performed for the bread and circuses crowd—despises compromise. In this perverse political world, it is far better to lose altogether, than it is to win 75% of one’s desires. A dozen years ago or so, when Marco Rubio was newish on the scene and was establishing his credentials as a Senator of the reasonable right, then President of the Heritage Foundation former South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint said of him “I’d rather have 30 Marco Rubios than 60 Arlen Specters”, the Pennsylvania Republican Senator who was not famous for his unwavering conservative credentials (having been a Democrat much of his life). This is the path to permanent minority, and we see it playing out before our eyes today as GOP abortion absolutists try their hardest to alienate everyone but down -the-line pro-lifers.

When they gathered at Philadelphia in 1787, the Framers decided quite early that their proceedings would be secret—as there was little doubt that whatever it was they were there to do—great changes to the present form of government were possible. In that secrecy, the feckless Articles of Confederation were thrown overboard in favor of the Constitution under whose magnificence we continue to prosper, at least until the next crowd of terrorists decides to besiege the Capitol.

Backrooms were how our political parties USED to pick candidates, back when parties mattered. Having lost all control of the modern political process, parties today stand by while hucksters and dead-enders rally the worst instincts in the electorate to vote in primary elections guaranteed to produce unelectable—but pure!—candidates.

I want more backrooms. I want men and women of substance and flaws to come together and argue, defend, assert, and compromise. I want them to do so in the confidence that they were all in it together, that what is produced—while not perfect—represents a very solid attempt at a constructive solution.

But these wants are inconsistent with modern political blood-sport. And so we will simply continue to decline.