Warning: the tweets in this post contain some salty language, because Twitter is actively burning to the ground and everyone on it has shed the last of their inhibitions.
The incineration of Twitter continues, with impersonation running rampant, advertisers running for their lives, and Elon Musk having bizarre public meltdowns over his $44 billion mistake. Thanks to Musk’s nonsensical new verification scheme, in which anyone can pay $8 for Twitter Blue and get the coveted checkmark next to their name, Twitter users are impersonating brands and public figures, paying the money to get “verified”, and then going wild.
A fake Nintendo of America account was one of the first hoaxes, posting an image of Mario flipping the bird, but other accounts have gone more explicitly political by calling out companies for the horrible things they’ve done.
For example, here’s British Petroleum supposedly owning up to destroying the Earth’s ecosystems by keeping us dependent on fossil fuels! The tweet is right on the heels of a spoof account claiming they’re adding sex to Roblox, because of course it is. It’s chaos and lawlessness everywhere.
Or how about Chiquita acknowledging its bloody role in colonization? Yes, bananas are tasty, but the companies responsible for getting them to your grocery store also manage vast plantations in Central and South America, and they have a pretty reprehensible history of protecting their assets at all costs.
Then there’s Eli Lilly supposedly announcing that insulin, which people with diabetes depend on for survival, is now free—like it should be in a civilized and humane world.
What’s even more amazing is that the real Eli Lilly’s stock plummeted because of the hoax.
Hey, Eli Lilly—if you think a stock drop is painful, try paying exorbitant fees for a life-saving hormone that costs about ten bucks in many other countries!
Plus, Elon Musk himself wasn’t safe from ridicule, with one user getting his account locked for 12 hours after making a joke at Elon’s expense.
Twitter has already pulled the new Twitter Blue, so the impersonations are at least temporarily paused. What will next week hold? Who the hell knows? Hopefully, companies getting publicly dragged for being evil will prove to be one small silver lining amidst all the chaos.
(featured image: Britta Pedersen-Pool/Getty Images)
