The Last Good Thing
Here at Digg, we love the internet and all the wild, wacky things it produces. But we're also realists, and we're not going to try to deny that the internet is, by and large, a flaming pile of garbage. A key feature of that garbage pile is that there is very little middle ground these days — depending on your political alignments, basically everything is either Extremely Good or Incredibly Bad.
But for a while now, WeRateDogs (@dog_rates) has been an oasis of apolitical calm, where every internet user could agree that yes, that dog is a 13/10 pupper. Late Tuesday night, however, the calm was shattered.
It all started with President Trump's bewildering "covfefe" tweet — as the word moved from typo to meme in record time, Matt Nelson, the entrepreneurial college student behind WeRateDogs, saw a merch opportunity:
Harmless! A bit of shameless capitalism, sure, but nothing that would rustle a casual follower's jimmies. But then Nelson tweeted a "pupdate" that half the profits would go to Planned Parenthood. And just like that, the oasis of apolitical calm was shattered.
Pro-life followers of the account, including prominent conservatives like the National Review's Jonah Goldberg and Townhall's Guy Benson jumped into WeRateDogs' mentions and voiced their displeasure with the donation choice:
The account's classic retort "they're good dogs, Brent" was even co-opted:
In response to the backlash, Nelson posted a lengthy, screenshotted statement on Twitter, conceding he shouldn't touched on a "very sensitive subject" but maintaining that the proceeds will still go to Planned Parenthood:
Last night, Trump made a hilarious typo. Thankfully I was on twitter when it happened and immediately included "covfefe" in an emergency dog rate. We then put the word on a hat and added it to our store. Many of you thought it was the best thing ever, but a few comments that stuck with me referenced how it's not the most honest way to make a few bucks. In the heat of the moment, I added that we would be donating half of all profits to Planned Parenthood, an organization with values opposite our current administration. I thought it was perfect. Immediate feedback was positive and encouraged more people to buy the hat.
This morning I woke up to a ridiculous amount of backlash for my decision. I let my personal beliefs infiltrate an account that's not meant to share them. This isn't really a good excuse after two years of running the account, but I am still learning. And today I learned that rushing decisions involving your money and a very sensitive subject is irresponsible. So, since we already said we would, and many of you bought it because we said we would, we will still be donating that money to PP. But I saw some comments suggesting we donate to dog shelters, which is obviously much more on brand for us. So, I will match whatever we end up donating to PP, and donate it to a local shelter.
If my actions offended you, I'm sincerely sorry. Alienating a portion of my audience is stupid and unnecessary. Different opinions are good and conversations about those opinions are valuable. Dogs are bipartisan and that's why my following is diverse and my account brings people together. Last night I jeopardized that, and I'm sorry. I'll do my best to put the train back on the tracks to the wholesome, pure, escape from reality account you all have come to love.
The statement doesn't appear to have helped much, as Nelson has also now disappointed the pro-Planned Parenthood contingent — while the anti-PP tweeters are, presumably, still angry.
Which is all to say, let's just all forget this happened so we can go back to enjoying pictures like this and forget about this garbage world for a few moments:
