X is offering free blue checks to those with over 2,500 “verified” followers who are X Premium subscribers. Popular posters will get a blue check, but not everyone is pleased. Some are already hurriedly writing to clarify that they did not purchase a blue check but rather that it was forced upon them.
“Some personal news: I’m now a serial small business founder in Arizona who posts about fatherhood, faith, and what it takes to get a roofing company to $100 million ARR,” Tom Gara, a former BuzzFeed editor and recently minted blue check, said on X.
“This is punishment for posting too much,” wrote another hesitant blue check, Business Insider senior reporter Katie Notopoulos. 
The blue check on Twitter used to signal that a person was influential in some manner. Now, this may seem strange in the era of the paid blue check, but trust me: I was there, way back in the ancient days of 2022, when X was Twitter and Twitter had genuine advertisers, not a bunch of advertisements for drop-shipped AliExpress stuff. Back then, blue checks allowed us to determine whether prominent personalities were who they claimed to be. So, if someone is famous on Twitter, possibly because they are a celebrity, influencer, or journalist, they will get a blue check, which may help decrease the spread of disinformation.
Up until now, a blue check could indicate a variety of things, such as your desperate need to feel important, your desire to use X’s premium services, the frequency of your impersonations making it worthwhile to pay Elon Musk $8 per month, or your status as a crypto spam machine.
Elon has successfully recreated the fundamental function of the blue check. Even so, you won’t be able to tell the difference between a “real” blue check and the responder who truly wants you to purchase their memecoin.
