A Hard-hitting Expose

Twitter Blew

Not Quite a Month of paying for Twitter

Nothing in recent history has blown up the internet quite so much as Elon Musk announcing he was gonna start charging for Twitter.

It’s still free but you can also pay extra, which seems to be the predominant business model these days.

So what do you get for your eight bucks a month? I thought my readers would want to know, so I signed up.

I was originally going to wait a whole month before sharing the results of my Twitter Blue experiment, but I became increasingly paranoid that somebody was going to steal the awesome title I had come up with for my article, so here we are.

So as you can see, Twitter Blue promises not only a shiny new Blue Check Mark but a ‘cleaner thread reading experience,’ whatever the hell that means.

A Blue Check Mark used to mean you were a celebrity or a politician or someone else important, like a real estate blogger.

But now anybody with eight dollars can have one, so naturally, the real estate bloggers of the world were outraged.

They took to the (digital) streets to protest: “These were nobodies, but they have Blue Check Marks; how dare they buck the system like this?”

And we all know the system worked great. For example — you go on a reality show or murder somebody, then pay for followers until a Twitter engineer extorts you to get verified, then you capitulate so you will get more followers that will see when you post your barely-disguised ads where you pretend you’re just randomly talking about this great product you discovered and everybody wins!

But I’m not a real estate blogger or an extreme luxury aquarium influencer, so the check mark was less important to me than the “cleaner thread reading experience.”

I assumed this meant fewer ads or at least ads that were targeted to me that I would actually be interested in. I mean, they had all this data on me; would that be too much to ask?

So, was I getting better ads? Fewer ads?

As far as I can tell, I was just getting one ad. The same ad. Over and over. For a backpack. This backpack:

I have no idea why they thought to target me for a backpack. Do I need a backpack? No. Had I been talking about a backpack? Searching for a backpack on Google? Not at all.

I mean, this isn’t a uniquely Twitter problem. The first time I tried to use the TBS app to watch American Dad, I got six minutes of the same exact advertisement for Franklin & Bash and I never used the app again.

Did Twitter vet these companies at all before selling them my information to target me as a consumer?

I decided to do some research and see if this was just one big scam. I looked up this “Nordace Siena Smart Backpack” and in spite of my initial skepticism, I found that it is actually a quality product.

$109 might seem like a lot for a backpack (save 10% with code ERICRULES) if you are used to buying flimsy twenty-dollar backpacks from Ross, but like anything these days, you get what you pay for.

In this case (no pun intended), what you get is a whole heck of a lot of value.

In addition to your choice of seven colors, the backpack has numerous compartments and pockets. There’s a laptop sleeve that will safely hold your computer, a secret pocket for your valuables and even a USB passthrough to charge your phone on the go!

I mean, I’m not gonna mince words here: if you don’t buy this backpack, I hate you. Better people than me would probably pity you but I look around at the state of the world today and I realize that you are the problem and can feel only hatred and bitterness because it’s your fault that everything sucks — everything, that is, but this backpack.

I love this backpack so much. That may be hard for some people to understand. I just met this backpack like three days ago and I know you like my (ex) wife but if you give this backpack a shot, you’re going to grow to love her just as much, if not more, than ol’ what's-her-name.

Frankly, I know you guys are just trying to help or look out for me or whatever but fuck you. I am a grown man and I have made my choices. I am prepared to live with them and there is no looking back on my part or the part of my backpack.

If you need to get in touch with me to offer me your blessings only, drop me a DM. I have a new place. It’s smaller but it’s plenty big enough for me and the twenty-three hundred Nordace Siena Smart Backpacks I have purchased. Well, some are in the garage but I count that as mine even though I am supposed to share it with my neighbor because he doesn’t drive.