Andrew Hawkins and Tony Hawk have hilarious exchange after losing verified check marks

The move by Elon Musk’s Twitter to strip away verified check marks from those who have chosen not to pay $8 a month for Twitter Blue is causing lots of impacts across the sports landscape and beyond. One particularly funny one came from an exchange between Andrew Hawkins (the former NFL and CFL player and ESPN/Uninterrupted/Learfield broadcaster, now the president of sports technology company StatusPRO) and Tony Hawk (the legendary skateboarder). Hawkins (seen at left above with the Cleveland Browns in 2016) goes by @Hawk on Twitter, and he decided to reference the skateboarder after he lost his check mark:

F*** it… I’m Tony Hawk now. Prove otherwise.

— Andrew Hawkins (@Hawk) April 21, 2023

Not surprisingly, Hawk (who’s often been known for showing his sense of humor on Twitter) had a good response to that on his @TonyHawk Twitter:

I believe you

— Tony Hawk (@tonyhawk) April 21, 2023

This came after another funny tweet on the subject from Hawk (seen at right above in 2022), who often goes around not being correctly recognized:

Trolls: “Are you the real Tony Hawk?”
me: yes, last I checked
Twitter: check again pic.twitter.com/SvI7VepJ5W

— Tony Hawk (@tonyhawk) April 21, 2023

There probably isn’t a lot of danger of too many people conflating Hawkins and Hawk despite Hawkins’ Twitter name. It’s less problematic than Rachel Nichols/Rachel Nichols, Mark Lazerus/Mark Lazarus, Jeff Duncan/Geoff Duncan, and Miles Garrett/Myles Garrett (and check marks didn’t help in those cases, with parties on both sides being verified, and Twitter’s own algorithms have even been specifically at fault in some of those cases). But there is definitely a lot more potential for impersonation after these changes, and that’s going to be real interesting when it comes to the already-existing problem of fake insider accounts and other fake news, especially around events like the upcoming NFL Draft.

[Andrew Hawkins and Tony Hawk on Twitter; Hawkins photo from Aaron Doster/USA Today Sports, Hawk photo from Akash Pamarthy/The Detroit Free Press, via USA Today Sports]