A blue check mark on your house lets everyone know you're important.
Danielle BaskinTwitter has verified you with a blue badge, but why stop there? Affixing a big blue check mark to the front of your home lets anyone who walks by know you're a person of influence. At least that's the idea behind the new service Blue Check Homes.
"The blue verified badge on your house lets people outside know that you're an authentic public figure," the website reads. "To receive the blue check crest, there must be someone authentic and notable actively living in the house."
The criteria for getting a home badge become increasingly satiric as you continue reading. Yet the joke website from San Francisco designer and artist Danielle Baskin has drawn real interest since her Friday tweet announcing it got liked and retweeted thousands of times. Almost 500 people have signed up for a badge so far, according to SFGate, prompting Baskin to add a disclaimer to the Blue Check Homes site.
"If you thought this was a full-fledged service, please investigate the things you read on the internet," the disclaimer reads. "And if you're an artist making jokes on the internet, we should consider adding disclaimers like this, because not everyone understands your commentary and will share your jokes as fact."
Artists gotta rewrite their brains for the common internet scroller. I thought my second tweet in the thread was clear that Blue Check Houses was a response to a simple joke on a previous tweet. Alas! I now have a disclaimer. pic.twitter.com/thAjmdLwsq
— Writer for Black Mirror (@djbaskin) January 30, 2021
Baskin often creates cultural send-ups, particularly of "internet vanity culture and terrible capitalist ideas." She also makes quirky real products like a battery pack that looks like a Pokeball and custom-printed respirator masks that bear images of the wearer's face.
The idea for a verified badge for houses arose when she wondered aloud on Twitter why some Victorian homes bear a particular blue shield with a diagonal purple stripe. Was it purely ornamental or did it signify something historic?
One of her followers commented that the shields were like Twitter blue check marks of yore, and Baskin was off building Blue Check Homes.
The site invites people to apply for a badge. Then all they have to do is wait for a review and interview with the Blue Check Homes board and pay $3,000. It's a great deal considering the fee includes a custom-painted crest background to match to your home's color AND a free consultation to discuss the placement of the badge.
The criteria for who qualifies are amusingly, and randomly, specific, underscoring just how subjective social status and public prominence really are. Among those eligible are "homeowners who are athletes or on professional esports leagues, and coaches listed on the official team website or who have three or more featured references within the six months prior to applying in news outlets such as Kotaku, Polygon or IGN."
Also invited to apply are "homeowners who are actors with at least five production credits on their IMDb profile."
Blue Check Homes reserves the right to remove the blue badge from your home at any point if you no longer meet the company's standards. Thankfully, the removal will not incur additional charges.
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