Does anyone know what the game plan is? The people I used to know at Twitter were fired after Elon took over, and since then it's been more miss than hit. Twitter finally purged its cache of legacy blue check accounts, which means that now anyone with a blue badge on the website is willingly paying an $8 monthly subscription fee.

While being a patron is always good, and should be rewarded, sure, now there's no discernible way to determine if celebs are who they say they are on the app. Go all the way back, it started when Shaq put his foot down, because scammers where using his likeness. Fast forward 15 years later and we're back to square one. But now things have changed. Pop stars don't care, neither do some soccer stars.

I'm not here to argue with people. The takes have been wild enough. The site was bought so that he could destroy it. Sure. I'd like to point out to you all the loud-mouths who are still behind these ideas. Twitter wasn't perfect, but its parts worked and could be improved upon. Then came in a bunch of people who thought they could fix it and take it to new heights.

Less than 50 people (out of roughly 400,000) who lost their legacy blue check marks purchased a subscription. And we're not sure if the three people Musk is paying for out of pocket (LeBron James, William Shatner and Stephen King) are included in that.

Update for the day after: just before the purge yesterday, 19,469 of the 407k legacy verified accounts I had identified in early April had Twitter Blue. Today that number for those same accounts is 19,497, for a net increase of 28 accounts.

— Travis Brown (@travisbrown) April 21, 2023

Now the fun begins. There's clearly a divide, and Elon will try his best to convince people to spend around $90 a year to have a blue check mark, the ability to edit tweets and post 10,000-word messages on the app, and his besties will follow the script too. Enjoy Twitter before it becomes a graveyard of memes and prompts.

I..... I wonder if ..... he knows that .... actors aren't .... employees of talent agencies????? https://t.co/Axwjox8qaC

— Katie Notopoulos (@katienotopoulos) April 21, 2023

.@broderick absolutely nailing what's behind all these sweaty tweets: "if celebrities don’t buy Twitter Blue his $8-a-month cartoon checkmark turns into an idiot cringe badge he paid for the privilege of wearing." https://t.co/8Do02yXG2B https://t.co/B3gWfcODH7

— Christopher Ingraham🦗 (@_cingraham) April 21, 2023

elon look what you’ve done. are you proud of your self? do you feel like a big important man now? pic.twitter.com/ivU9hWUB7y

— slate (@PleaseBeGneiss) April 21, 2023

My Twitter account says I’ve subscribed to Twitter Blue. I haven’t.
My Twitter account says I’ve given a phone number. I haven’t.

— Stephen King (@StephenKing) April 20, 2023

Lol they’re so hurt about it https://t.co/sZEJPs5yLL

— Zito (@_Zeets) April 21, 2023

Wrong https://t.co/GWfoY57JAt pic.twitter.com/QSnJ5jA7UU

— Jason Kirk 🦉 (@thejasonkirk) April 21, 2023

One of this guy's suggestions in a text thread to Elon was to allow Twitter Blue subscribers to be able to mass-DM all of their followers. https://t.co/K5KlgtABPJ

— Cody Johnston (@drmistercody) April 21, 2023

But u don't need a checkmark to make $$ from ur persona, that's the point. Musk's latest changes only show that, once again, tech founders fundamentally don't understand the value of online creators. The platform should be paying its big creators, not the other way around! https://t.co/YbfkoLEykv

— Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) April 21, 2023

Turning off replies whenever I mention this great bargain of a product that the people love https://t.co/mqDe2xpnNU

— Emoji Caresser (@LizRummy) April 21, 2023

'the greatest bargain in the world is something that was free 24 hours ago' https://t.co/ptAEdEX03g

— Fred Delicious 🍆 (@Fred_Delicious) April 21, 2023

Have you considered I don't want a badge that says "dumbass" on my account? https://t.co/bsSKsupxZE

— 'Whack' with a silent H ☀️ (@WhackNicholson) April 21, 2023

so, 96 bucks in exchange for one chance per year to monetize however much a random stranger in the world might be impressed with an Official Fancy Lad badge you bought from Elon Musk, yeah that definitely sounds like objectively the greatest bargain in the world https://t.co/Yccvi8KILL

— Albert Burneko (@AlbertBurneko) April 21, 2023

Still love you Jeff.

I have never met a comma placement that I couldn't mangle the first time around.

— Otto Von Biz Markie (@Passionweiss) April 20, 2023

See ya.

VERIFY!! VERIFIY THIS ACCOUNT! THE TROLLS ARE BREAKING IN THROUGH THE WINDOWS!! I NEED THE CHECK MARK !! NOW!! NOW!! NOW!!

— wint (@dril) December 5, 2017