This comes after a few days Twitter announced Those older verified accounts will lose their blue check mark starting April 1 unless they sign up for the paid Twitter Blue. At the same time, Twitter is working on a method for paid subscribers Hide blue checksprobably because it might seem awkward to have one if all it means is that you paid for it.

Together, both changes could get more subscribers (Twitter hopes), but also ensure that the For You page becomes a collection of shoppers, ramblers, and anyone else who wants to pay for Twitter. Oh, and the brands. By limiting amplification to only a small amount of paid users, it makes the For You page more open, and brands can get more traction and amplification in a free Tweet for paying for Blue than buying ads.

Normal, unpaid accounts are only supposed to be visible in the following feed, the time feed of only people you follow — basically, what Twitter used to be.

Over the weekend, a photo of Pope Francis looking dapper in a white puffer jacket went viral on social media. The 86-year-old seated pope appears to be suffering from some serious cataplexy. But there was just one problem: the photo wasn’t real. Created with Midjourney’s artificial intelligence technical tool.

As word spread across the internet that the image was created by artificial intelligence, many expressed their surprise. “I thought the pope’s puffer jacket was real and never thought about it again,” Chrissy Teigen chirp. “No way can I escape the future of technology.” Garbage Day newsletter writer and former BuzzFeed News correspondent Ryan Broderick invited him “The first real mass-level AI misinformation case,” it follows in the aftermath Fake photos of the arrest of Donald Trump by police in New York last week.

Now, for the first time, the image’s creator has shared the story of how he created the image that fooled the world.

Pablo Xavier, a 31-year-old construction worker from the Chicago area who declined to give his last name due to fears he would be attacked for taking the photos, said he was stumbling through dorm rooms last week when he came up with the idea for the photo.

“I try to figure out ways to make something funny because that’s what I usually try to do,” he told BuzzFeed News. “I try to do funny things or tripartite-psychedelic things. It just dawned on me: I have to do the Pope. Then it came like water: “The Pope in a fluffy Balenciaga coat, Moncler, walking the streets of Rome, Paris, things like that.”

He generated the first three images at around 2pm local time last Friday. (He first started using Midjourney after the death of one of his brothers in November. “It almost all started, just dealing with grief and taking pictures of my ex,” he said. “I fell in love with her after that.”)

When Pablo Xavier first saw the Pope’s photos, he said, “I thought they were perfect.” So he sent it to a Facebook group called AI Art Universe, and then on Reddit. He was shocked when the photos went viral. He said, “I didn’t want it to explode like that.”

Athletes love lives It’s been basically a national obsession for as long as we’ve had professional athletes: Marilyn Monroe and Joe Dimaggio’s relationship, for example, was big news in the 1950s. Then and for a long time after that, our attention was usually riveted to pairs like this where a high-profile celeb committed to sporting an icon and their combined star power made it impossible to look away.

Then came a file 2006 World Cup, which has taken the England team to the sleepy spa town of Baden-Baden, Germany. This was a year after it appeared TMZIn the booming days of America’s toxic preoccupation with party girls like Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton – media companies are beginning to understand what they can do online with celebrity gossip. The 24/7 news cycle was thirsty to hate and hate women in equal measure, and found them ready in the wives and girlfriends of England players.

Among them were some well-established tabloid fixtures, most notably Victoria Beckham (married, of course, to David) and pop star Cheryl Tweedy (then engaged to England left-back Ashley Cole). But the group also included a lot of non-celebrity women. Instead, they did not lie down flirt headlines By going on shopping sprees, dancing on tables, and leading a media circus that continued until their partners were knocked out of the tournament in the first round of the knockout stage.

So was the rest of the world WAG metwhich was an abbreviation Generalization In the British press for a few years at that point. Literally speaking, a WAG is simply the wife or girlfriend of an athlete. But the WAG as seen in Baden-Baden settled into the public consciousness, creating an identity that points to the private He writes A woman who lives a certain kind of life. The WAG prototype is young, white, skinny, beautiful and, if possible, blond. She is also shallow, pompous, and obsessed with status. She lives on drinking rosé wine, going to parties, and spending her husband’s money.

There was an immediate backlash to the term, particularly from the wives themselves: “Don’t call me a WAG,” Tweedy Tell The Standard, making sure to make it clear she didn’t need a rich husband to take care of her – her shopping and clubbing was done on her own dime, thank you very much.

It doesn’t matter. Language – and its associations – ceased. By 2010, The New York Times male that the New Jersey Nets “may be second to last in the league in scoring and middle of the road in rebounding, but they can compete with the best in the WAGs.” (One of their attackers, Kris Humphries, was dating Kim Kardashian at the time.) In 2015, E! Debut reality show called WAGs LAwhich would become the first in a Housewives-style franchise that was eventually included Miami And Atlanta also. Then, in 2019, we got Agatha Christie SCAM: Football WAG Coleen Rooney has alleged that fellow WAG Rebekah Vardy has been leaking details about her to the tabloids…and that she has private Instagram posts to prove it. The story was interesting and interesting, but it didn’t do much to dispel the notion that WAG life was basically frivolous and weak women, who had nothing better to do than spy on each other and then fool the press about it.

Throughout it all, the WAGs that have garnered the most attention have always been either famous themselves, or partnered with extremely popular players. If you could name an American WAG, someone would probably be like Aisha Curry Or Brittany Mahomes—the women whose husbands get multimillion-dollar contracts and endorsement deals.

But there are 15 players on every NBA roster. The NHL allows 23, MLB takes 40, and the NFL takes 53. And most of those players aren’t even close to being trademark players. The lowest pay is the league minimum, which is still a lot of money: somewhere between $700,000 and $1 million, depending on the sport. But this is only if they manage to stay on the list all year round. Going down from the top level doesn’t disqualify them from the pros, but it can cost them significant income. Baseball players, for example, don’t have guaranteed contracts, which means if you were sent to the minors during the 2022 season, your salary would drop from $700,000 to $57,200.

That still isn’t poverty wages, to be sure. But for these athletes, that uncertainty about money is compounded by other kinds of uncertainty—mainly about where you live, potential injuries, and an ever-aging body. The player’s romantic partner is exposed to these same pressures – fluctuations in income, sudden changes in living situation, and worries about the future. But she deals with them in the service of someone else’s dream. And even if she travels fairly regularly, she spends a good part of the year alone, which becomes especially difficult if the couple has children.

this is life for the majority of professional athletes and their wives; There is much, much more to Alison Kutcharczeks than Ayesha Curry. Perhaps unsurprisingly, some of the most compelling social media content has come from the women in this situation — their husbands are living the dream, but somewhat precariously, and as a result, their lives are, as a result, equal parts ambition and pegging.