Elon Musk has worn the crown for less than a week and Twitter is already more fun. By ‘more fun’ I mean, social media has become entertainment media in its own right.

Yesterday’s offering was a wrestling of wits between Elon Musk and Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. If that doesn’t sound like a fair match-up well, you’d be right. Like a rat lured into the socialist cheese-trap, the combat quickly became a spectator sport.

For context, this tussle began earlier when Elon Musk announced that the privilege of a Twitter ‘blue-tick’ would be given the free market capitalist treatment. Starting soon, anyone will be able to purchase a blue-tick for $20 a month – and those who refuse will lose their verification… It was a price eventually changed to $8.

‘Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullsh*t. Power to the people! Blue for $8/month.’

Followed quickly by a snarky, ‘You get what you pay for.’

‘Blue-ticks’ were started as a verification process to allow publications, TV shows, and other public figures to separate themselves out from the other accounts – and their parody knock-offs – as ‘the real account’.

This would be a sensible system if based in merit, but Twitter closed the application process for everyone except ‘special cases’ which roughly translated to ‘people they like’. By religiously refusing to validate conservative journalists, publications, and political figures – ‘blue ticks’ became known as a ‘class’ on Twitter, one that veered sharply to the left.

Announcing that this privileged veneer of users would now have to cough up for their shiny blue badge pleased the under-class of users while genuine accounts, who have been applying for verification for years, were more than happy to engage in a simple transaction rather than a laborious social credit test.

Still, we were treated to some beautiful meltdowns from the richest people. Author Stephen King was one of the most entertaining, scrambling onto the platform to rant:

‘$20 a month to keep my blue check? F***k that. they [sic] should pay me. If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron.’

…to which most people replied, ‘Bye!’

Musk, who has changed his bio line to, ‘Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator’, stepped in to help the old bloke out.

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

At this point it should have been obvious to everyone what Musk was up to. If you’ve worked in sales or tried to buy a mid-life crisis car, there is a well-known trick of starting the price of a product way too high and then offering something much lower soon after so that it looks like a discount. Humans like to think they’re getting a bargain. That’s how you sell $400 shoes to a customer who didn’t want to spend anything, but they walk away thinking how lucky they were not to spend $1,000! They’re thanking you for helping them spend money.

Plenty of people were prepared to pay $20 a month for a blue-tick, now those customers are happy because they’re only paying $8.

Musk is not a stupid man. Stephen King might be.

‘It ain’t the money, it’s the principle of the thing,’ he moaned, like a spoilt child furious that the poor kids outside were about to be let in out of the cold to play. King tried a few more times to get Musk’s attention, not realising that Musk didn’t need him anymore.

‘Kudos to Elon Musk, who has begun a revolution in how the world drives and who has incredible visionary talents. I got an early Tesla and traded for another one. Wonderful cars (no autopilot for me, thanks). That said, when it comes to Twitter…’

And:

‘Musk makes me think of Tom Sawyer, who is given the job of whitewashing a fence as punishment. Tom cons his friends into doing the chore for him, and getting them to pay for the privilege. That’s what Musk wants to do with Twitter. No, no, no.’

Don’t worry, King. By the sounds of it, Musk already made plenty of money out of you. We’ll wait and see if you quietly keep your blue-tick or slink into the shadows where conservatives have been forced to lurk.

To be fair, if Musk were to implement tough rules regarding misinformation, Stephen King would have been nabbed for this comment:

‘It’s very simple: the failure to get the shot doesn’t just endanger the unvaccinated. You are not free to yell fire in a crowded theater, and you’re not free to sicken those around you.’

Knowing that he’d vanquished King, Musk went and laughed at a few memes including one in which the Peasants of Twitter (should that be a band name?) told the blue-ticks ‘we are the celebrities now’.

Eventually, Musk found the biggest meme of all – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Being a hardcore socialist, Ocasio-Cortez is famous for having a gaping hole where a normal person’s sense of humour would sit.

‘Lmao at a billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that “free speech” is actually a $8/mo subscription plan.’

We’re going to have to ‘fact-check’ her on that. It’s not $8 a month to use Twitter, it’s $8 a month for a special certification that unlocks extra privileges previously only accessible by the socialist-style regime of ‘comrade benefits’.

‘Your feedback is appreciated, now pay $8,’ replied Musk.

Musk’s next move was to post a photograph of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s merchandise – a ‘Periwinkle Supporter Crew Sweatshirt’ – for $58. Sounds pretty capitalist for an ‘eat the rich’ socialist.

(It should be noted that in the middle of these Twitter wars, Elon Musk is literally launching rockets.)

During the entertainment, David Sacks pointed out that, ‘The entitled elite is not mad that they have to pay $8/month. They’re mad that anyone can pay $8/month.’

After fundamentally undermining Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s entire political credibility as a rich capitalist, he left her to dig a BHP-sized tunnel toward the centre of unintentional hilarity. Keep in mind, by this stage no one of importance was listening.

David Sacks said to Ocasio-Cortez, ‘Why aren’t New York Times, Washington Post, and the Atlantic free? Their billionaire owners should stop being greedy and give us those products for free.’

She replied, ‘Are you seriously equating an app where people are torrenting racial slurs at an accelerated clip with the New York Times? Also fyi, legacy newspapers actually care about verifying newsworthy sources. And they don’t charge their journalists/creators for “priority” placement. As for billionaire ownership of our news sources, that is a legitimate problem! Market concentration is a huge issue. Hope you’re using your power to stop private equity gutting local newsrooms while supporting nonprofit and co-op modelled news outlets as well.’

I should have prefaced this with a warning: almost none of what she says makes any sense.

Her reaction to the dig at her merchandise really trampled on a nerve.

‘Proud of this and always will be,’ she insisted, of her completely superfluous and egotistical merchandise. ‘My workers are union, make a living wage, have full healthcare, and aren’t subject to racist treatment in their workplaces. Items are made in USA. Team AOC honours and respects working people. You should try it sometimes instead of union-busting.

‘Not to mention all proceeds go to community organising like our Homework Helpers program which gives private tutoring to kids who’ve needed learning support since Covid: check out our shop! Support our workers and our communities.’

After the socialist finished singing the praises of capitalism helping the poor, she added:

‘You’re a union buster with an ego problem who pockets the change from underpaying and mistreating people.’

There’s more but honestly, there’s only so much AOC you can take before you consider showing up to the gulag voluntarily for a break.

Like all champagne socialists, she lives off the taxpayer and uses her position of privilege to make life infinitely worse for the working class by subjecting them to the brutality of the union movement. Musk is her polar opposite, employing over 110,000 thousand people. Socialists preach, capitalists create…