TICK, TICK, BOOM — 'Blue tick' starts leaving the room

Elon Musk-owned Twitter has started the much talked about purge of verification tick marks for its users who have not signed up for its Blue subscription service. The message from the eccentric Twitter boss is clear: 'Pay up' or lose the Blue tick — often vaunted as a badge of honour in the Twitterati universe.

The move from Twitter to extract a price for bestowing users with a Blue Tick could leave a lot of celebrities high and dry. This article focuses mainly on the Indian acting fraternity.

A quick caveat. A lot of users may have applied for a subscription and are yet to be allocated a Blue tick. Also, through the course of the day, Blue ticks could start reflecting on many of these pages.

Many senior actors, from Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh, and Salman to Akshay Kumar, Madhuri Dixit and Ajay Devgn, who boast millions of followers have lost their verification.

Younger actors including Hrithik Roshan, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Shahid Kapoor, Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone, Anushka Sharma and Alia Bhatt have lost their blue tick verifications as well.

Some actors like Aamir Khan, and Ranbir Kapoor were never on Twitter, at least not officially.

However, some Twitter handles representing actors have subscribed to the Blue ticks. Team Alia Bhatt is one of them.

The Twitter page of Dharma Productions has a yellow tick. It has been recognised as an official organisation on Twitter. Same goes for Yash Raj Films.

Top actors like Vijay, Ajith, Vijay Sethupathi, Simran, Madhavan from the Tamil film industry have lost their Blue ticks.

Chiranjeevi, Ram Charan and many more popular actors from the Telugu film industry have lost their blue ticks as well.

Now to the Malayalam film industry. Veteran actors Mohanlal, Mammootty have lost their blue ticks. Popular actors like Dulquer Salman, Tovino Thomas have 'lost it’ as well.

Yash, Sudeep — The personal Twitter handles of these Kannada actors do not have a Blue tick anymore.

Above all, Rajinikanth has lost the blue tick. Don't know if it's Rajini's loss or Twitter's.

Veteran actor Kamal Haasan, who also doubles up as a politician has subscribed to a Blue tick. Some popular actors in the Telugu film industry have subscribed as well such as Nagarjuna, Ravi Teja, Mahesh Babu, Junior NTR and Rana Daggubati.

SS Rajamouli, director of blockbusters like Baahubali 1 & 2, RRR has subscribed to a Blue tick. Vivek Agnihotri, director of The Kashmir Files and someone quite vocal on Twitter on a range of issues outside the realm of filmmaking, has subscribed as well.

Top production houses like Madras Talkies, co-helmed by the legendary Mani Ratnam have subscribed to the Blue tick.

Moreover, Twitter handles of fan clubs have subscribed to the Blue tick. Some of them are endorsed by the actors themselves. These include:

- SRK Universe Fan club (SRK himself follows this account)

- Team Kiccha Sudeep

- Allu Arjun Army (Allu Arjun often retweets their posts)