A badge meaning the account was who it said it was. Sold for $8 a month from November 2022, at which point it meant the opposite.
We used to argue about Blue Check on a forum that no longer exists, run by a man whose name I never knew, and I would give a lot to read those threads again. The argument was better than anything I have read about it since.
Evidence, with a photograph: a job advert for a regional accountancy firm, 20 September. Blue Check, with quotation marks around it, which is how an institution says it has heard of something.
I remember exactly where I was when Blue Check stopped being funny: a work meeting, 2016 or thereabouts, when the most senior person in the room used it correctly. Silence. Then everyone carried on.
For the record, the ironic use of Blue Check and the sincere use overlapped for longer than people admit. There were years when you could not tell, and those were the good years.
The record calls this a term. It was closer to a handshake. You said Blue Check and the other person either knew or did not, and that was the entire transaction.
4 years gone and I can still tell you the week it turned. The record blames “Removed by Twitter”. The record is being polite; it was over the moment it was safe to say in a meeting.
Sighting, 2 January, a laminated menu in a chain pub. Blue Check in an automated message. A person configured this once, years ago, and has since left the company.
What does it mean? Write it the way you would say it out loud.
