Community:Verified group
Verified group does not refer to any official VRChat feature, but rather it is an emerging phenomena among the community.
Origin
With the release of the Groups feature announced on November 30th, 2022[1], VRChat users quickly realized that one of the benefits is being able to put an arbitrary image above one's nameplate by representing a group.
A month prior to the feature's release, Elon Musk has purchased[2] Twitter and started making changes to how blue-check verification works on the platform, making it available to anyone for $8 per month,[3] which was quickly followed by mass impersonation by the site's users and becoming a subject of ridicule among internet users.[4]
VRChat users quickly began to take advantage of this new functionality by creating groups that parodied Twitter's new "verified user" badge. These groups typically feature a banner that includes the blue verification badge with the text "Verified X" where X can be substituted for various traits other users might find amusing.
Notable Examples
One of the first such groups on the scene was Verified Bottom[5], but similar groups were created and spread like wildfire among community members thanks to being represented by many for their banners' humor factor. This lead to some groups quickly hitting the initial member limit of 10,000 set by the developers during the feature's soft launch.
The group Alcoholics Anonymous,[6] which currently boasts over 25,000 members, also features a banner in the same theme, with an orange-color variation on the check mark. This may be a reference to Twitter's introduction of the golden checkmark for business users that starts at $1,000 per month.[7]
The sudden interest in similar vanity groups with broad appeal was likely part of the reason why the VRChat team to ultimately decided to raise the membership cap to the current limit of 100,000.[8]
References
- ↑ Groups is Now Live! (VRChat blog)
- ↑ Acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk (Wikipedia)
- ↑ Twitter begins rolling out $7.99 Twitter Blue plan with verification, fewer ads (TechCrunch)
- ↑ Sports Twitter is now a verified hellhole thanks to Elon Musk (SBNation)
- ↑ Verified Bottom (VRChat group)
- ↑ Alcoholics Anonymous (VRChat group)
- ↑ Twitter to charge businesses $1,000 per month to keep gold verified checks as it axes 'legacy' verified checks (Business Insider)
- ↑ Managing a Group (VRChat Help)