This is how it always goes. The symbols change, the medium shifts, but the mechanics of status remain the same.

What was once a tool of verification, a means to separate the real from the fraudulent, has become a social currency... its value no longer tied to what it represents, but to who is willing to pay for it.

The blue checkmark has completed its inevitable metamorphosis from utility to vanity... From necessity to indulgence...

This is not new.

Medieval Knights would boast coats of arms woven into their banners, not because they needed them, but because society demanded visible proof of lineage, or power, or wealth.

Chinese mandarins, embroidered with meticulous precision, reminding every peasant onlooker that they were of a different echelon, a class above.

Rome's elite wore purple togas, dyed in pigments so rare they were worth their weight in gold and allowed only to those deemed worthy by an empire built on hierarchy.

This is the nature of symbols. They do not exist in a vacuum; They are shaped by those who wield them, by those who aspire to them, by those who seek to exploit them.

The moment something is scarce, it becomes desirable. The moment it becomes desirable, it becomes commodified. The moment it is commodified, it loses whatever purity it once held.

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