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Notes -
Okay, here's a better way of arguing this:
If we go back a bit before the blue checkmark change, when the bluecheck filter still worked, here's mark cuban retweeting some non-verified tweets: i just ordered a 90 day supply of TWO of my medications for 18 fucking dollars ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ shoutout @costplusdrugs I work in Medicare and I refer beneficiaries to Cost Plus Drugs daily. I discovered on my own medications that I pay less without using my health insurance, and that with CPD I pay less than my co-payments. Thank you @mcuban @costplusdrugs !!! I paid 15$ for a 3 months supply for what would have cost 70$ for a months supply! #richmangivingback. Obviously, this is advertising his company, but he clearly interacted with nonbluechecks some before the change.
However, let's look at a random tweet of his before the change. Early voting starts today in Texas ! #Vote with face pic.
There are six hundred of these!
If we go into his recent replies, we can see tweets like this, where he interacts with bluechecks who have questions that both form complete sentences and are somewhat relevant. This is an old bluecheck, not a new bluecheck, despite the change making it hard to distinguish between them. So I can see why he'd prefer the old system
Funnily enough, he has a 0 follower burner account he uses regularly "Precisely so I can have the same experience" as the average user.
I think any "neutral and factual" description of "Oh no. You got Pfizer Eye too?!" "I hope you vote Republic!" ends up sounding about as insulting as "brain dead npcs".
I get it man, you liked the way blue checks worked, so you want to defend it. But you did it the same way every blue check does - with a veneer of rationality covering barely suppressed contempt and arrogance. Mark Cuban's use case is not representative of the typical blue check, the typical blue check is not flooded with thousands of replies to every tweet. But the blue check thinks 'yeah, it's me and Mark Cuban, big dick swingers like us don't have time to deal with these fucking p-zombies!' because that was the true value of the blue check system. It made them a member of an exclusive club of beautiful people - aka billionaires and celebrities - which made them special, which made them better than some checkless pleb. That is what has been destroyed by Musk's move. Yeah yeah, you said there are checkless users who are smarter and more worth following than many blue checks, but then you just couldn't refrain from saying the quiet part out loud. That's the part that puts people off.
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