We're not really discussing reality if you believe that Stephen King gets status from the blue check rather than it working the other way around. There are people that do (sadly, pathetically) extract status from blue checkmarks, but they're only able to do that because people like Stephen King play ball with this system. The "blue checkmark status" could literally be phrased as "people as high-status as Stephen King and those like him".

Obviously, substitute Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Rihanna, Selena Gomez, and LeBron in as appropriate to your particular interests.

“We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?”

If you can see mocking in those 3 sentences then I can metaphorically see you popping up and down on elons lap.

> [...] had no dollar value attached to it. It was literally unbuyable.

$44 billion seem to be the going rate.