meta · humor · frontend
Why my portfolio has a verified tick.
Every message I write on this site comes with my face and a blue tick. Click the tick. Go on — it answers back. This is the complete, entirely serious, peer-reviewed (by nobody) engineering report on how it got there.
The problem
Social platforms charge a monthly fee for a tiny blue badge that says "this person is real." I am real. I have the receipts: commit history, hackathon certificates, and a suspicious amount of coffee spend.
The solution (it's 11 lines)
A circle, a single checkmark, and the colour #1d9bf0. That's it. That's the whole heist.
<svg viewBox="0 0 24 24">
<path d="M12 1.5l2.6 1.7 3.1-.2 …z" fill="#1d9bf0" />
<path d="M8 12.3l2.7 2.7L16.3 9.3"
stroke="#fff" stroke-width="2.2" fill="none" />
</svg>Why not?? It's just code and 1 Claude prompt.
Features nobody asked for
- It's clickable. Blue ticks elsewhere are decorative. Mine has a customer support department (one witty paragraph, rotates on demand).
- It follows the avatar. Anywhere I speak — toasts, banners, quips, this very byline — the face and the tick come along.
- Zero KYC. I verified myself. Strictest identity check I could think of: I know me.
This tick is self-issued, decorative, and a joke. It is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, any social network. (See the Terms. They're short and slightly funny.)
What I learned
Trust is mostly vibes, a good avatar crop, and a hover animation with a spring on it. Also: if you want your portfolio to be remembered, give people something to click that they didn't expect to be clickable.
Thanks for reading. Now go click the tick up there. I'll wait. ↑