Since they were first introduced in 2009, Twitter’s blue checkmarks—which were mostly reserved for celebrities, brands, influencers, and other “important” people in their field—have become a sort of social media status symbol. But ever since Elon Musk announced that users will have to start forking for money if they want to keep that tiny tick, these have become the tiny blue equivalent of a red letter.
“Today was the Big De-Checkening on Twitter,” Jimmy Kimmel said on Thursday night. “Basically, if you haven’t signed up for Elon’s $8-per-month plan, you’ve lost your blue verification mark. Thus, some of the best and brightest in the world, including His Holiness Pope Francis, had their checks taken away this morning; Her Royal Highness Oprah; And somehow I lost the blue check, but Jimmy Fallon should keep the blue check. I guess that means he’s the only real Jimmy now, I don’t know.”
“Guess who else has a checkmark?” Kimmel asked the audience. asked. Are you ready for this? OJ should keep hers. I guess you don’t want to piss him off, do you?
The start of the Great Blue Checkmark Purge on Thursday seemed like highly dubious timing. Earlier in the day, SpaceX, one of Musk’s companies, launched the Starship spaceship… or at least tried. According to Kimmel, “the most expensive penis overcompensation in American history” hovered and exploded for about 4 minutes before suffering a major engine failure.
The company called the incident “a quick, unscheduled takedown”, which Kimmel described as “the same thing that happened to Twitter when Elon Musk took over.”