In June 2024, Robby Lefkowitz was working at a protein company and, feeling “bored,” created a neighborhood-themed X account after seeing others like East Village Guy and Williamsburg Wrangler. He named his account Murray Hill Guy. Two and a half years later, Lefkowitz says he has been doxxed, sued, widely criticized on the platform—and paid just under $80,000 by Elon Musk’s social network.
“I would say probably 80% [of the posts] I stand by,” Lefkowitz told Fortune, adding that the other 20% is meant to be more provocative and to “get the people going.”
That roughly 20% of provocative posting sits at the center of a platformwide change. On Sept. 7, X ended Creator Revenue Sharing—the impressions-based program that began paying creators in July 2023—and replaced it with a program called Original Content Rewards.
Original Content Rewards pays for unique views of posts by Premium subscribers on the Homepage timeline. To qualify, an account must have 500 verified followers and 500,000 verified Home timeline impressions over the prior 90 days, and it must continue posting original content to remain eligible.
The new rules aim to block copied content, engagement solicitation and anything “potentially harmful,” calling the previous program “misaligned.” Lefkowitz and other creators who earned from X say the payouts didn’t create the impulse to post, but they did influence what appeared on the timeline.
The shift represents an acknowledgment that X’s payout structure shaped creator behavior—favoring provocation and aggregation. Nikitia Bier, X’s former head of product, spent the spring trying to limit aggregator payouts and publicly criticized specific accounts; he stepped down two days before the new program was announced. Lefkowitz says he was approved for the new program on the first day. X did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
50 million views and a check ‘in the thousands’
Murray Hill Guy’s breakout moment came last summer, when Lefkowitz shared a screenshot of a woman canceling a date after the man would not say whether he voted for Zohran Mamdani. The post drew more than 50 million views and, he says, about half his current following. His next biweekly payment from X was “in the thousands.”
Since then, Lefkowitz has concentrated on dating content—posting manosphere-style commentary about “fat chicks” getting dates, women’s body counts, and frequently screen-recording a woman’s dating profile or TikTok and asking followers to weigh in on her appearance.
In August, he says a woman whose photo he used in a fictional dating story posted his real name and face in reply, marking what Lefkowitz describes as the fourth or fifth time he’s been doxxed. “It happens every three to six months.” He told Fortune he didn’t think she crossed a line: “She can do the same thing that I did. Fair is fair.” He also acknowledged the story he posted about the woman was made up and that he shouldn’t have used a stranger.
Lefkowitz says he has a girlfriend who knows about the account and is comfortable with it so long as he respects her boundaries: “Don’t post other girls. Don’t be too crazy.” He notes he met her “outside, in the wild,” and often replies to critics of his influence on New York dating with the same advice: “Go outside and just meet someone in real life.”
“Online isn’t real,” he adds. “Everyone has some type of persona online, and yes, it could be in person as well, but usually it’s not the same. I can say that for myself too.” For Lefkowitz, even negative engagement is financially valuable: “Any engagement is good.”
A typical month of posting has earned Lefkowitz between $3,000 and $10,000 from X, plus brand deals—he says Polymarket paid $1,500 for a single post—and income from a coaching business. He estimates he spends two to three hours a day on the account, sourcing stories from friends, DMs and walks to get coffee. “Everything could be a story.”
He says X never contacted him about rule violations. When another account later posted his phone number, he says friends at the company helped get that account banned.
‘Half my rent’
Other creators have also earned meaningful sums without leaning on controversy. ColdHealing, who asked to remain anonymous to preserve an enigmatic presence across 280,000 followers, joined Revenue Sharing on day one and made about $25,000 over three years. He says the money mostly went into savings and that influence mattered more than earnings: reposting others’ content that gets impressions doesn’t carry the same value as steering attention with your own posts.
Another poster, who goes by Basil, runs a popular election-forecasting account he started in high school to push back at Nate Silver. Now a machine-learning engineer, he says he makes about $1,000 a month from the account—“half my rent”—but still does not understand how X calculated that payout.
Neither ColdHealing nor Basil believes the checks changed how they personally post, though they say monetization altered other creators’ behavior. “Since monetization really blew up,” Basil says, “there are a lot of accounts that are just reposting Reddit or TikTok or rage-bait posts to get people to quote-tweet them.” ColdHealing noticed his TikTok reposts were being paid less than others’ posts months before the program ended and suspects X was quietly running an originality filter. “They’ve never really listed what you’re getting paid out for.”
All three creators point to a deeper reason they keep posting: the platform’s feedback loop. “Twitter’s always been a little dopamine simulator,” Basil says. “The more likes I get, the happier I get.” ColdHealing traces that incentive back to the day X began showing view counts on every post: “That was free monetization.”
Basil believes the platform was better before payouts, calling the change a “net negative overall,” while ColdHealing describes the payouts as “mildly” corrosive to culture but useful as a precedent for paying creators. He expects payouts to grow, not shrink.
For Lefkowitz, the money matters but so does entertaining his audience. “I want people to engage for the monetization, but on the other side, go outside, laugh about it, don’t take anything too seriously.” Asked whether he would keep posting the material that enrages people if X stopped paying, he said: “Probably less, for sure.”
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
Source: fortune.com
