Twitter Creator Payouts

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About

Twitter Creator Payouts or Twitter Monetization refers to the ad revenue sharing program launched by Twitter in July 2023. Following several viral tweets from creators and accounts posting about the large amounts of money they purportedly received in mid-July 2023, the monetization program became a subject of viral debates and memes on the site with many asking how they could also make money on the platform.

Origin

On February 1st, 2023, Twitter^[1] owner and CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the platform was reviewing options for sharing ad revenue with creators (shown below).

On July 13th, 2023, Twitter^[2] news account @TitterDaily reported that Twitter was rolling out its Ad Revenue program within the next 72 hours (tweet shown below, left). Later that day, Twitter^[3] officially announced the launch of the program (shown below, right).

The eligibility requirements for the program include being subscribed to Twitter Blue or being verified on Twitter, having at least 5 million impressions on your posts in each of three last months and passing a human review for monetization standards.^[4]

Spread

On July 13th, 2023, multiple high-profile accounts on Twitter reported receiving payouts from Twitter on Stripe, including YouTuber MrBeast ($25,000),^[5] controversial influencer Andrew Tate ($20,000)^[6] and gimmick account Internet Hall of Fame ($107,000, the highest reported amount).^[7]

On July 13th, 2023, internet culture journalist Taylor Lorenz published^[8] an article titled "Far-right Twitter influencers first on Elon Musk's monetization scheme." Also that day, Lorenz made a tweet in which she accused Musk of "essentially bribing" popular accounts to stay on Twitter. The tweet^[9] received over 170 retweets and 1,400 likes in one day. Later that day, Twitter^[10] user @alx quote tweeted Lorenz's tweet, mentioning that Musk teased the program in February. The quote tweet (shown below) gained over 1,100 retweets and 12,500 likes in one day.

The rollout of the program was quickly followed by memes about it. For example, on July 13th and 14th, 2023, Twitter user @SaeedDiCaprio made two tweets in which he pretended to receive large payments from Twitter. The tweets^[11]^[12] gained over 370 retweets and 40,100 likes and 3,400 retweets and 41,000 likes, respectively, in less than 24 hours (shown below, left and right).