"blue check elitism"?
No one cares about blue checks
No one cares about blue checks
Why does it exist in the first place if "no one cares about it?"
Lots of features exist that no one cares about. You seem to be implying UX folks always get it right.
Long time but casual Twitter user here. I've never paid attention to the blue check. Anecdotal, but yeah.
I do get your point though: it's quite probable that some users are very interested in the feature even if some or many average users ignore it.