John Mayer Left Twitter: Where Does His Account Go Now?

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U.S. musician John Mayer performs at May 2010's Rock in Rio Music Festival in Lisbon

REUTERS/Jose Manuel Ribeiro

The pop star’s sudden move left his 3.7 million followers waiting on the world to change.

Monday’s word that John Mayer discontinued his social media account left fanatics in a difficult place. Mayer’s spokeswoman told the AP that the close of his Battle Studies Tour and more in-house studio work were factors in disconnecting his Twitter audience.

With Mayer’s account now in a defunct state, what happens to the tweets that were attached to his page? The Washington Post‘s Melissa Bell analyzes that question, introducing a tinge of black-market mayhem to the equation.

(More on TIME.com: John Mayer in our Top 10 Apologies)

While attempting to buy or sell any username violates Twitter’s user code of conduct, Technology Review reported last May that Russian cybercrime forums were sweeping up batches of dormant pages for cold hard cash.

But Bell asks a business question that strays from the bad. If Twitter allowed sales of large accounts like Mayer’s, could those proceeds go to good causes? Think 140 charitable characters or less, from pages that start out as free promotion tools.