'RatVerified' is a hilarious Twitter protest hashtag, but it should be 'ratified'

Twitter’s latest group joke – adding a rat emoji to your name instead of getting verified – is funny, but the hashtag is just a missed opportunity

Credit: Wes Davis | The Shortcut

➡️The Shortcut Skinny: getting #ratified

• 🐀 Twitter user tinysnekcomics made a delightful viral tweet on November 1 suggesting we all add rat emojis to our names instead of getting verified, using the hashtag #RatVerified

• 👉👉 They later corrected themselves with a follow-up hashtag: #ratified

• 🤦 It was too late, and everyone latched onto #RatVerified, missing the superior pun

• 🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀

On Tuesday, November 1, Twitter user tinysnekcomics made this very good tweet:

alex 🐀 @tinysnekcomics

why would i pay $8 to get a blue check if i could put a rat next to my name for free??? i’m calling on everyone to join me in becoming #RatVerified

Absolutely hilarious, but they made a crucial mistake in choosing the hashtag “#RatVerified,” a forgivable blunder, and one they made up for with a follow-up tweet that simply said “#ratified” – the one true hashtag for this viral “protest” movement.

alex 🐀 @tinysnekcomics

#ratified

But it was too late.

Tweeting public’s picked up the #RatVerified ball and ran with it; it even reached the lofty heights of Newsweek publication yesterday, putting the final nail in the coffin of the pun that rightly deserved the spotlight.

This comes on the heels of rumors of a $20 monthly Twitter verified plan that would give anyone with the money to spare a little blue check mark next to their name. After a high-profile protest by renowned horror and fantasy author Stephen King, the thinny opened further and through the breach Musk posited an eight-buck-a-month plan instead.

Stephen King @StephenKing

$20 a month to keep my blue check? Fuck that, they should pay me. If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron.

Elon Musk @elonmusk

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

Whatever your thoughts on the controversy, surely we can all agree

that the acknowledgement that Twitter is just one giant rat king is the deepest truth going in social media today.