First off, can I just say I liked the name Twitter? It was perfect. Light, chirpy, harmless. Then, along came a giant black X, like someone rage-quit the branding team. Sure, change happens, I get it. But I don’t like it. There, gripe number one out of the way.

I’ve been on (deep sigh) X since 2009. That’s 16 years of scrolling, tweeting, posting, liking, following, unfollowing, blocking, rage-quitting and crawling back again. At my peak, I had over 10,000 followers. More recently, around 3,000. I followed about 2,000. It was all going okay.

Then Elon bought it.

Let me stop you right there, this isn’t going to be a “Musk Bad” rant. I actually like Elon… kind of. He’s a genius, probably from another planet, and honestly, I respect the chaos. But what did he done to the platform? Oof.

Let’s talk about the one thing that’s turned X into the only platform I actively *dislike*, despite once being the only one I *loved*.

Blue Tick Wankers

I didn’t invent the term. It’s just the internet’s nickname for a growing tribe of blue-badged users who are... well, kind of the problem. 

Now, confession: I am one of them. As in, I have a blue tick. Not the other bit. At least I like to think not. Please don’t write in.

So why do I pay for X Premium? Two reasons:

1. Longer Posts – I’m wordy. I don’t do snappy soundbites. I do rambling monologues and awkwardly long replies. Without Premium, I had to spend more time editing tweets than I did writing them.
2. Grok – I like AI. Grok used to be pay-to-play. Now it’s not, but Premium still gives you some nerdy perks. Sold.

That’s it. No ego. No clout-chasing. Just practical perks.

There was a time you could ditch the tick, and I did. But now it’s glued to my name like a clingy ex. So here we are.

But here’s where it gets bad.

Monetisation Madness

Elon introduced a scheme where X pays you for being “popular.” Great idea on paper. But here are the rules to earn cash:

1. Pay for Premium (of course)
2. Have 2,000 verified followers
3. Rack up 5 million organic impressions in 3 months
4. Be active (i.e., don’t go missing for a month)
5. Be over 18 (thanks, Elon)

Now, I met all the criteria, except that pesky 5 million impressions bit. Which, by the way, is absolutely bonkers unless you’re already a viral machine.

To give you a sense: over the past 3 months, I managed 146,000 impressions. Sounds impressive, right? But nope, I’m still a cool 4.85 million short. And this isn't a one-time target. It’s a rolling 3-month cycle. Exhausting.  Not that I wanted to get to 5m, just demonstrating it's only possible if you really, really, try hard.

So what do you do? Easy. Post a lot, reply more, get followers, farm engagement. Enter: the Blue Tick Wankers (let’s just call them BTW’s from here to preserve sanity).

These BTW’s post anything, and I mean anything, to get clicks. Half of it’s wildly misleading, deliberately controversial, or flat-out false. Why? Because if it sparks rage, it sparks replies. And replies mean engagement. Engagement means impressions. Impressions mean money.

Quality? Dead. Honesty? Buried. My feed? A digital landfill of clickbait nonsense.

And sadly, some of the accounts I used to admire, real people with thoughtful posts, have turned to the dark side. They’ve joined the BTW army. And now it’s a full-time job just filtering through the nonsense.

Why Did I Nuke My Followers and Follows?

Simple: reset button. A digital detox. A scorched-earth social strategy. Call it what you like, but it’s the only way to clean up my feed and start fresh.

So right now, I follow exactly two accounts. And have zero followers. Like a ghost in the machine.

The plan is to slowly follow only the quality stuff. No rage farmers. No BTW's. Just good, useful, honest accounts. Even ones without blue ticks, because let’s be honest, not everyone is chasing coins—they’re just sharing.

It’ll take time for X’s algorithm to realise I’m no longer into nonsense. But eventually, I’m hoping to see more of the stuff I actually care about, and far fewer posts from people claiming 5G gave their hamster anxiety.  I will also be making more use of the mute button in X, which allows you to mute words you don't want to see, very handy.

That’s the plan anyway. I’ll let you know if it works, or if I end up talking to myself in a very clean, very quiet corner of the internet.

So, if you're reading this and are someone who just posts useful things, drop me a follow, and I will build back up with the right people.

Top Tips for X

• If you see something on your timeline you are not interested in, tell X, click on the 3 dots in the top right and click "Not interested in this post".
• Never want to see something? Go into settings and privacy > Privacy and safety> Mute and block > Muted Words and then type in any words you want.
• It should go without saying, don't follow or engage with (click on) things in your timeline you are not interested.

Follow those and watch your timeline clean itself up and you will see what you want to see.  Mostly, some things still get through, but far less.