Chude Uzoka, Staff

A few months ago, I told my friends that if Elon Musk bought Twitter, he wouldn’t actually fix it the way people wanted. That’s because what people wanted was a completely unmoderated utopia (or dystopia) for people to say whatever they wanted and for Elon to bring all of the banned accounts like Donald Trump and Andrew Tate back. Since then, he’s tried to back out of the deal, got sued by Twitter and settled the suit by effectively saying “if I buy it, will you stop suing me?” (Not a real quote) He was going to lose and effectively buy the site anyway and probably pay some extra penalties as well.

On Oct. 26, the day before the deal was official, Musk went to Twitter HQ with a sink, filmed it and tweeted it. Now it’s been about three weeks since he took over Twitter and what’s happened since then? Well, not only did he not immediately reinstate all the banned accounts, which really set off Lavern Spicer, he said he was forming a “content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints” and that “no major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes.” He added that this group would include the civil rights community and groups that face “hate-fueled violence.” Also on day one, he tweeted a post captioned “Dear Twitter Advertisers” and included two screenshots of text, trying to reaffirm to them that the site won’t become a free-for-all hellscape where anything can be said with no consequences. This is what I predicted would happen, because he must appease the people who pay the bills, at least in the short term, while he figures out another revenue stream. 

One thing I didn’t predict is that his purchase of Twitter would cause much of a trainwreck this quickly. First off, a bunch of advertisers left, and Musk had a fit, claiming that they were “trying to destroy free speech in America,” and threatened to name and shame them if they didn’t stop. Yes, advertisers will definitely spend money if you threaten them. Good plan! He admits the site experienced a massive drop in revenue, which means he needs another way to make money. The solution? Well, Elon Musk, the richest man on Earth who hangs out on yachts for fun, decides blue checkmarks are too elitist and wants everyone who isn’t a celebrity, politician or important person of note to have a blue check next to their name. So, he tweaks Twitter Blue, a product that already existed. You can’t make this up. He originally said that it would cost $20 a month. Stephen King made a comment saying he would never pay $20, saying that the site should pay him. Elon responded with a suggestion to charge $8 instead of $20. I imagine Elon considers Stephen King a personal hero. After all, the guy wrote a book about a self-driving car that kills people and Elon Musk has made that a reality! 

So, $8 is where it ends up, and Musk’s rationale is that “it is the only way to defeat the bots & trolls.” Yes, trolls could never find a use for being able to have a verified checkmark next to their name, right? Many people started making a bunch of Elon Musk impersonation accounts, with many of the users already being verified. 

Rich Sommer, who plays Harry Crane on Mad Men, changed his name and profile picture to Musk’s and sent out a tweet mocking the Tesla CEO.

Comedian Kathy Griffin and YouTuber Ethan Klein were both banned for changing their name

to Elon Musk and shitposting.

Comedian Kathy Griffin and YouTuber Ethan Klein were both banned for changing their name

to Elon Musk and shitposting.

Then there were the people who did start buying blue checkmarks just to make posts. Here are some of my favorites: 

Here’s one for the Canadians:

And in perhaps the most damaging use of $8 ever, someone impersonating pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Company tweeted this:

When the real Eli Lilly and Company tweeted an apology, people started mocking them for not apologizing for the cost of insulin. If that wasn’t enough, their stock dropped rapidly. There’s lots of speculation as to how this could happen, but the fact is that right after the tweet, the stock had a $20/share drop. That’s a lot in one day. A few days later, the Twitter Blue program got suspended, and you didn’t need a Nostradamus to see this coming. This raises an interesting question: could Eli Lilly sue Twitter for allowing this to happen? Probably not, but it does lead to why verification exists in the first place. It’s a bizarre story that involves baseball manager Tony La Russa, who tried to sue Twitter back in 2009 because someone was impersonating him. La Russa claimed they settled, but Twitter denied this. As a measure to fight this impersonation problem, Twitter put a Verified feature in place for famous people. You were required to send someone a scan of your ID to get it. That is how verification should work. Just letting anyone buy a blue checkmark with no real verification was absolutely going to result in this.

An email from Elon leaked onto the site, where he mentioned that 50% of the revenue still needs to come from advertisers, even if Twitter Blue worked. He also told his staff that Twitter might not survive the upcoming economic downturn, he’s already teasing an impending bankruptcy. Here’s the problem: he doesn’t know how to run a business that’s funded by advertising and subscriptions. He only knows how to run businesses that are allegedly heavily funded by government grants and subsidies. Elon has declared that “comedy is legal” on Twitter, but this opens another potential problem that he needs to avoid. Straining relationships with Visa, Mastercard, his old friends at PayPal and other payment processors. This is because I guarantee that once the fake accounts are banned, the owners of them will issue chargebacks against Twitter. This isn’t the first time this happened, the payment processors almost stopped dealing with OnlyFans and one of the reasons was chargebacks, as they feared credit card companies would stop working with them. Visa doesn’t need Twitter, Twitter needs Visa. On Nov. 16, he sent an email to his remaining staff, telling them to pledge their lives to the company or resign. Guess what most of them did? The next day, TwitterHQ shut down because Elon was afraid of the service being sabotaged by the service and that the offices would reopen on the 21^st, giving Elon a weekend to figure out if he has any staff left and who among that staff he can trust. This all sounds awfully familiar. I don’t want to say a certain someone’s name, but…isolating from everyone and not knowing who you can trust at the very end is very similar to how things wrapped up in 1945.

Elon once again proved me right on Nov. 18, when he tweeted, “New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach. Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter.” He’ll effectively be shadow banning posts deemed “negative” or “hate,” they won’t appear in feeds, they are only accessible through a person’s Twitter page directly to see them, which many people don’t do. He did reinstate the accounts of Christian conservative satire site The Babylon Bee, Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson and I guess for “balance, ”Kathy Griffin. He gave a hard “no” to Alex Jones, so it seems the “free speech absolutist” has his absolutes. Former president Donald Trump got his account reinstated after a poll created by Elon that was about 52/48 in Trump’s favor. Trump has repeatedly stated he won’t be coming back to Twitter, so we’ll see how long that will last or whether a post will be “deboosted” under the site’s new rules. 

Samantha Klein, Staff

Huffington Post

Absolutely anything is possible. There is not a single thing you cannot achieve. Wake up early, eat a healthy breakfast, make sure you attend all of your classes and get a workout in. Make sure you complete all of your assignments to the best of your ability, your room is clean, your bed is made and your laundry is done. Make sure you practice a multi-step skincare routine after you shower, achieve your step goal, meditate, journal, plan your papers in advance, study hard, attend every meeting. Make sure to make the extra effort to call home every day, keep in touch with old friendships, socialize with current ones and attempt to form new ones. Make sure you look good for the day, your hair is done, your outfit is comfortable, but simultaneously stylish. Make sure you smile often, stand up straight and above all, never let anyone see the one lonesome tear strolling down your face because you have simply had enough; but anything is possible, right?  

Perfection is a concept unfairly driven into the minds of children at a young age. We are taught that there is a standard that we must meet in order to be good enough, that there is this “realistic” expectation held. And as we see other people meet this expectation, it becomes a sort of protocol, routine. There is this assumption that we must be able to reach this now standardized goal or else we fall short and fail. Inadvertently, one forces themself to try that much harder to fulfill this expectation in fear of falling short, the fear of messing up forever imprinted into the minds of those who will not stop pushing themselves until they break. Yet the reality is, anything is not possible, for this vast category of “anything” includes the notion of perfection, and what is realistic is that there is no such thing.  

Perfect denotes zero mistakes, the absolute best one can be 100% of the time, however, to do this is to be merely inhuman. Robots are programmed to be perfect, not people, and oftentimes even robots make mistakes. Have you ever had a computer glitch, or something go wrong on your phone that was not caused by user error? Even what is intended and designed to be perfect cannot fully fulfill this definition, so why would you, a human, ever think it to be possible?  

The fact you cannot ever be entirely perfect does not mean you should not try your best to be the best YOU can be, but it does mean it is not worth it to run yourself into the ground trying. A balance between discipline and cutting yourself slack is imperative to a positive wellbeing. As much as you might need to study a little harder for an exam or work late one night on a paper, you also need to watch a movie or take a nap. As someone who struggles with finding this balance, feeling immense amounts of guilt when I do ease back on myself, denying myself the credit I deserve for the hard work I do, I understand the difficulty in being simultaneously motivated and relaxed. However, it is necessary to strive for progress, not perfection.  

Get up early, eat a healthy breakfast and go to your classes, but it is okay if you are not able to get a workout in. Do your work and make sure you do your skincare after you shower, but if that means you cannot do your laundry, so be it. You deserve to be in a neat space, so get that room cleaned up, but if you only have energy to make your bed, that is okay too. Maybe in order to call your parents you had to stay up late writing a paper; reward yourself with sleeping in the next morning.  

Even if all of this is not enough to lighten the load of what feels like the entire world on your shoulders, it is always okay to let that tear trickle down your face, for you are not that “perfect” robot, but a human. A human who is loved, important, valued, and above all, perfectly imperfect. As hard a pill as it is to swallow, know perfection is unattainable, therefore, you will forever be chasing a goal that cannot be reached, falling short every time. For this exact reason it is important to not strive for perfection, rather progress. And know too, at the very least, I will be beyond proud of you for this progress.  

Emily Allgair, Editor

Over the weekend, more specifically within a 24-hour window, Andrew Tate was mentioned to me three times. Mentioned might not be the right word, maybe discussed – because I was expected to respond with my personal beliefs and attitudes towards this man. Now, some of you, my readers, may not have ever met me or seen me, but I hope that I still exude the energy that I don’t really support Mr. Tate throughout my articles. And yet, somehow, this name that I have maybe uttered twice in my life prior to this weekend became a hot topic. 

I don’t really want to get into it within this article, but for sake of argument, just know I do not consider myself a supporter of Andrew Tate. What I would rather focus on within this article is to ask the question of why bring up polarizing topics if there is no real reason to do so? Let’s take a hypothetical polarizing election for example: it would make sense to debate the candidates with someone who has different views than you personally, as you could expand your knowledge on said candidates, issues and policies. But Andrew Tate… what does he have to do with anyone’s life other than those who listen to him and would take it to heart? 

In my eyes, the only thing that bringing up polarizing topics (that don’t have any weight in the lives of both conversing parties) would do is piss someone off. And for no reason! Each party is most likely uneducated in some aspect of Andrew Tate and complimentary topics; whether you don’t know his business standpoints (guilty) or you don’t recognize the underlying messages that his stance on women holds in a societal view, it’s not like you’re going to listen and learn about the stuff you don’t know.

So why bring it up? Other than the sole purpose of being polarizing? Personally, I think you’d bring it up to piss off your ‘opponent’ and be entertained by their reaction. Which it’s like, why would you do that? If that’s what you’re doing it for, then admit to it. Don’t try to play it off like you actually want to discuss the subject, because what good is that doing for anyone? You’re making your relationship rocky, even if it doesn’t seem like it’s that big of a disagreement. 
I guess what I’m trying to say is if you aren’t actually concerned with why someone thinks the way they do, don’t bring up Andrew Tate. Seems simple enough, right? And the same goes for any topic that is known to be polarizing. That’s my two cents, at least, and I hope this resonates with at least one person out there.

Samantha Klein, Staff

October is slowly transforming into November, the leaves changing color, the air growing colder. As midterms find themselves coming to end, there becomes this point in the semester where motivation finds itself at an all-time low, the earlier darkness of the night sky a reflection of how many students’ feel as the days progress.  There are some people who don’t suffer from this constant pressure or lack of drive, but it’s important we must not compare ourselves to those who appear the strongest, for everyone is dealing with something internally, behind closed doors.

      Everyone begins holding an empty glass. As our days continue and both trials and tribulations create temporary stop signs in its progression, our glasses start to slowly fill up with water. Eventually, through continuous daily and long-term adversity, the glass starts to grow in weight, no longer a mere empty glass. Some people might have glasses barely full, others halfway, some overflowing. Yet no matter the amount of water in your cup, it’s okay to set it down, even if someone with a glass fuller than yours is continuing to hold it up; for if your glass feels heavy, forcing your arm to go numb and feel stuck the more time goes by, it is illogical to continue holding it.

      Your glass is  your mental health. Just because you think someone might be going through more than you are- taking more challenging classes,  swamped with more commitments and assignments, doesn’t mean the weight of your own anxiety should be diminished. Everyone has their own breaking point, the point in which the weight on your shoulders feels too heavy and even the simplest tasks feel impossible. In these moments, it’s imperative to be kind to ourselves. For even if someone else’s glass is fuller, if yours is too heavy for you, you’re only hurting yourself by continuing to hold it.

      As the seasons continue to change and the semester continues to unfold, treat yourself with the same kindness you would to other people, for you too are human. When you overwork yourself, compare your struggles with those of others, or speak down to yourself, consider whether you would allow yourself to treat others in this same way. You deserve love and you deserve to be the one to give yourself this love. You deserve to take care of yourself in a way where you set your glass down, despite pride or the sentiments of others. There will come a time where you find ways to allow this glass to not fill as quickly or with as much water, but until then, I hope you choose to be kind- to your mind, your body, your spirit. Care for yourself this fall while still trying your best; relax, take a deep breath, and know this will always be enough.