Why @ladidaix Is at the Top of Every Celebrity’s X Replies

Like other social apps, X is a place for influencers, though it isn’t as lucrative as TikTok and Instagram. Still, under the ownership of Elon Musk, who acquired the platform in 2023, it introduced economic incentives for users to post. 

“The main economy in social media is the influencer economy, and that is always where Twitter really didn‘t have a way for influencers to create a lot of money,” says Isra Ali, a clinical assistant professor in the department of media, culture, and communication at New York University's Steinhardt School of Education. “What [Elon] Musk has done is created a way to monetize content.” 

X’s actual pay scale, however, isn’t completely clear. Though she’s been on the app for years, Umana only recently began making passive income from it—money she estimates tops out around $2,000 each month. 

“This woman gets paid a couple of grand a month just for getting views,” Ali says. “And, again, she doesn't have to post content that is quality. She just has to post content that gets attention. And the best way to do that is really to attach to something else that already is getting attention.” 

I’d seen @ladidaix on my timeline for months, but when she arrives for our late-afternoon lunch, she isn’t exactly what I expected.  She’s effortlessly charming, bouncing blonde curls intact, phone in hand. She’s bubbly, chatty, and, of course (as I found out after lunch), tweeting all the way up until our meeting.  

“I love being on the internet,” she says, “because I like to know what the fuck is going on.” 

This interview was edited for clarity and concision. 

So who are you? 
I‘m a multihyphenate in multiple ways. I started out in the world of entertainment and music as a songwriter. That‘s why I moved to LA, to pursue that again, moved back because of the pandemic, and then I tried to do the bicoastal thing. 

But I do a lot of things depending on who I'm working with. So freelance journalism work, which is always fun. I say culture reporting. It could be TV, film, music, tech, politics—anything I find interesting that an editor will take, I will write about.  

Separately, I manage artists. Management is like a full-time job, but it‘s something I do on kind of like a part-time basis, because until an artist is profitable, you can‘t really live off that. I also do consulting, either working with labels or startups, or social strategy, brand strategy, anything of that nature. And then sometimes I‘ll pop out as, like, a public speaker, content creator, depending on what‘s happening.  

That’s a lot of jobs. 
Plus podcasting, which also doesn't pay, but it’s fun. 

You have a big following on X, and I came across your account because you reply to a lot of big tweets. It feels like every viral tweet, your tweet is right under it. What was your relationship with the internet before X? 
I love the internet. I think the internet is maybe the greatest invention of all time. I‘m so grateful for it, because the way it‘s able to connect people and disseminate information is insane. Like, my mind is blown.  

Social media piqued my interest more than pretty much anything. Because you can talk to anyone you want, anyone in the world, and they don‘t even necessarily know who you are. I love the anonymity aspect, because it was kind of like a privacy [measure], but, also, there‘s parallels, because you just don‘t know who people are.  

What was the first social media you joined? 
The first one where I was able to join as myself might have been Facebook; it was just, like, school and friends. 

And then, joining anonymously, was Instagram and Twitter, because, if it‘s not obvious, stan Twitter is a whole other beast today, but there once a time where it wasn‘t that deep, and it was, like, not even necessarily abnormal, at least not to me, to run fan accounts.  

I ran fan accounts for Justin Bieber, Rihanna, and One Direction on Twitter and on Instagram, and I‘ve since deleted those accounts because, like, the whole digital footprint thing. 

That‘s kind of where I realized you can actually get very close to the people that you admire through social media. 

So what led you to running the stan accounts? 
I wanted to be able to interact online without being myself. And I also wanted to be able to champion artists that I really love. I just thought it was a cool way to support them. I wasn‘t a very antagonistic stan account. 

I think I had that fear instilled in me [from] my parents so that you don‘t know who‘s on the internet, and you don‘t want them to know you. And so fan accounts were a cool way to be able to interact as much as I wanted to online without having to risk any kind of safety. 

What was your impression of Twitter at that time? 
I slept on Twitter as a personal tool until the pandemic, but we‘ll get there. In terms of stan account stuff, it was [the] wild, wild West, because celebrities were active, and they were speaking their minds, and what they were saying was not PC. They were saying stuff that would get them canceled today. But that kind of was the beauty of it. It was just so unfiltered. And then there was a shift when Tumblr shut down, and that‘s when Twitter became kind of more, like, sensitive.  

Were you interacting with any other communities? 
Not really. Everything for me was just about celebrity. I didn‘t care about anything else. Obama was the first president to join a social media, but I wasn‘t even interacting with that. I wish I was, because I could have gotten a follow from him. He was following everybody. Justin Bieber was following everybody; Rihanna was out here talking to us. It was just different.  

How did that impact you? 
I‘ve always known that I wanted to be involved in entertainment, especially the music industry, because I‘ve always been fascinated by it. But I didn‘t really know how to get it. When I was young, I wanted to be a pop star, and my parents said no. But I think the resurgence of the importance of social media happened to me during the pandemic. Because, again, there was no way to interact with the world. We were literally locked inside. 

So you stepped away from running stan accounts and you’re trying out other social media for a few years. How did you make your way back to Twitter and build your following?  
There was no way to communicate via text on Clubhouse. There was no DMs, so everyone would link their Twitter to be able to connect off Clubhouse. People would DM each other and have conversations about what was happening on [Clubhouse] because, at the time, it was invite-only. A lot of crazy things that happened—weird, scandalous stuff. And the convo would move over to Twitter. 

Here‘s the thing: I‘m very chronically online. I love being on the internet because I like to know what the fuck is going on. Because you can be outside all day and you won‘t know what‘s happening in the world. You can be online all day and know what‘s happening. And that‘s bizarre to me, how that works. It’s almost counterintuitive.  

Twitter news feed has changed a lot, but prior to changes, that's where I was getting my news. Twitter is really good at letting you know what's happening in pop culture. In terms of building a following, most of it was through just sharing stuff about music industry opportunities. I have a newsletter. These are different things that are happening. Someone who‘s hiring. This is an event. This is an internship. This is a scholarship. This is a grant.  

Do you get paid from replying to all these big tweets? 
Twitter’s interesting because they have what they call a “creator program,” but it’s kind of like an ad rev share. I didn‘t care about that, and I still don‘t care about that. Getting paid by Twitter is cool—it’s kind of like passive income. It just goes into my savings. But you asked me how much money I made on Twitter—I wouldn‘t tell you. I don't know. 

Is that because it's a lot or a little? 
It‘s decent. It‘s not more than, like, $20K, though, that‘s for sure. 

A month? 
No, total. 

Twitter Blue, or Twitter premium—it goes to Stripe, and then I have it configured that it just goes into my savings. I don‘t touch that money. I don‘t spend that. It does whatever it does there, and it‘ll fluctuate. It’s funny, because people are always like, “Oh, she replies because the check.” I don‘t give a fuck about that. I don‘t spend that money. It just sits in savings and accumulates. 

So you don’t know how much money you’re making from this? 
It's definitely not more than $2K a month or I would notice, you know what I‘m saying? It’s not big enough for me to notice.  

I don’t know—$2K a month from Twitter alone is a lot. 
It‘s that or less. I don‘t think it‘s ever exceeded that. 

So what are the ins and outs? How many retweets do you need to get paid?  
I don’t know anything about that. I know they said you need five million impressions for the quarter, and I get that in a day.  

So what’s your strategy to make sure you hit that target? 
I don‘t have a strategy. I don‘t think it‘s as calculated as people might think. I‘m just a yapper. I see something and I have commentary. I didn‘t realize that that was abnormal until people started pointing it out—people in my actual life. My friends were like, “I saw your tweet on this page on Instagram.” 

Money is not the motivation for me. The point of an app is to be active on the app. Twitter is very easy to be active on because it‘s all text-based. I‘m not nearly as active on Instagram, TikTok, etc., because that requires a different sort of attention.  

There are billions of people who are active on the app every day who have something to say. I also have something to say. That‘s really all it is. But it‘s interesting because some people are very amused by it, and other people are very upset about it.  

What’s been your wildest reaction to a thing you’ve said? 
This was an IRL interaction. I don't know who they are—just a random person came to me and he was like, “Can you unblock me on Twitter?” 

I was taken aback by that, because I don‘t have any idea who the hell you are. I probably have a couple hundred people blocked on Twitter. I don‘t put a name to a face. You say something I don‘t like and you get blocked. So I told him no and ran away.  

Do you think you’ll ever leave Twitter and the money? 
No. I can‘t leave Twitter. Not that I can‘t—just, I have some of the marketing clients I work with. 

And then, also, it doesn‘t negatively affect me to be on Twitter. If it gets to a point where it does, obviously I‘ll get off there. As negative as the shift has been, I think it‘s also more reason for people who may not be aligned with the ideals of Musk or Trump to be on there. Pushback is good. We got to be on there to keep that presence alive. And I think, despite everything that‘s happening, it‘s still an important app because the zeitgeist is there. You can pretty much find every topic that‘s discussed in real time on Twitter.