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A Guy Who Can't Get A New Dishwasher Because Of Socialism, And More Of This Week's 'One Main Character'

Molly Bradley
Molly Bradley
A Guy Who Can't Get A New Dishwasher Because Of Socialism, And More Of This Week's 'One Main Character'
This week, we've also got a NYT columnist who feels like women's bodily autonomy is bad for men, a 26-year-old enjoying his life in NYC and a guy who thinks a baby formula shortage is not actually a big deal.
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Every day somebody says or does something that earns them the scorn of the internet. Here at Digg, as part of our mission to curate what the internet is talking about right now, we rounded up the main characters on Twitter from this past week and held them accountable for their actions.



This week's characters include an NYT columnist who feels like women’s bodily autonomy is bad for men, a guy who thinks socialists are keeping him from a working dishwasher, a 26-year-old enjoying his life in NYC and a random guy online who thinks a baby formula shortage is not a problem amid a forced birthing crisis.



Friday

Ross Douthat

The character: Ross Douthat, NYT columnist, guy nostalgic for the white elitism of yore, guy who finds Roe v. Wade undemocratic and bad for men

The plot: Amid conversations the past few weeks about the Supreme Court’s leaked draft decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Douthat decided it was time for him to speak out on behalf of men.

He was responding, in a quote-tweet, to writer and lawyer Jill Filipovic’s tweet noting the ways in which abortion has helped men as well as people who have been pregnant and sought abortions: “Men who wouldn’t have found their big loves, wouldn’t have their kids, wouldn’t have been as successful, wouldn’t have taken big risks.”

In response, Douthat said:



The repercussion: You gotta admit that Douthat really owned himself with this one. If there’s a trend of fewer men getting married since the 1973 ruling on abortion, it kind of sounds like abortion has allowed women to move on with their single lives rather than getting married for their and their baby’s family and security.

As for the workforce part, many responders issued reminders that correlation does not equal causation.



Molly Bradley



Wednesday

Matt Schlapp

The character: Matt Schlapp, political activist and chairman of the American Conservative Union

The plot: On Wednesday, American Conservative Union chair Matt Schlapp tweeted that his dishwasher had broken and he’d been told it would take a year to replace. This, Schlapp said, was a damning indictment of life under the Biden Administration.

Ignoring, for a moment, that the claim of a one-year wait for a new dishwasher is patently false ⁠— let’s acknowledge that Schlapp is holding socialists responsible for his delayed appliance replacement.

“No one will ever forget the Biden years,” he wrote. “Socialists have made building things in America a Green Nightmare.”



(Worth noting that Biden has only been President since last January.)

The repercussion: The many, many responses to Schlapp’s tweet ranged from disbelief at his nonsense claim to suggestions that he goes traditional and tries dish soap and a sponge instead. Several Twitter users also provided links to and screenshots of stores offering dishwashers for delivery within a matter of days, which begs the question: why post a lie that is so, so easily disprovable? And another question: who are the 18,400 people that liked Schlapp’s ridiculous tweet?



While most people were keen to catch Schlapp in a lie, other Twitter users simply seized the opportunity to make fun of him in general.



Darcy Jimenez



Codey James


The character: TikToker Codey James… or us?

The plot: If you’re new to Twitter, it wasn’t always like this. People weren’t dunking on each other all the time, screenshots were inflammatory and hashtag jokes used to be a thing. Earlier this week Twitter user punished_stu shared TikToker Codey James’s video on Twitter, and said “it's great how much this guy makes living in new york look like it sucks.”



James’s TikTok didn’t move me much. I’ve spent four years in New York and nothing really stood out in the clip he shared. It was him, having a good time and enjoying the weekend. It’s what I assume everyone else in the city, except for me, does.

The repercussion: James’s TikTok performance brought out the worst and best in people, regarding James’s life and punished_stu’s decision to snide it. Responses ranging from “who are we to judge” to “new york is ruined” were made.

And yes, James did respond.



And for James’s response:


@codey_james This is my official response to twitter #greenscreen #nyc #nyctiktok #manhattan #twitter #fypシ #foryou #fyp #10MillionAdoptions ♬ original sound - Codey James

Adwait Patil



@MelChap0

The character: @MelChap0, a guy on the internet who thinks America’s baby formula shortage is not that big of a deal

The plot: On Wednesday, media coverage of the United States’s baby formula shortage crisis  — the worst in decades — hit a fever pitch as upwards of 43 percent of baby formula supplies were found to be out of stock across the country, according to the retail pricing data firm Datasembly. The shortage, exacerbated by supply chain issues and a recent recall over a bacteria scare, sparked panic among parents wary of how this could impact the health of their children.

As Carla Cevasco, an assistant professor of American Studies at Rutgers University, pointed out in a viral baby formula thread, many mothers are unable to breastfeed for a variety of reasons (e.g. “poor latch, prematurity, cleft palate” et al)  and a shortage of baby formula increases their child’s risk of dying, observing that prior to the the “advent of modern commercial formula (in the 1950s), a lot of babies died of illness or starvation because they couldn’t breastfeed.”

However, that didn’t stop some men on the internet from weighing in on the worsening supply predicament, with @MelChap0 tweeting, “What did we do before baby formula?? I promise you theres bigger problems out here.”



The repercussion: @MelChap0’s tweet proclaiming the baby formula shortage to be small potatoes in the grand scheme of things got ratioed to smithereens as thousands of angry netizens corrected his assertion by pointing out this was an issue of life and death.





James Crugnale


———

Read the previous edition of our One Main Character column, which included a Florida man who thinks the people getting abortions are cat ladies who don’t have sex and more.

Did we miss a main character from this week? Please send tips to [email protected].

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