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DO I DARE?

A Mom Resentful Of Her Husband For Eating A Peach, And More Of This Week's 'One Main Character'

Molly Bradley
Molly Bradley
A Mom Resentful Of Her Husband For Eating A Peach, And More Of This Week's 'One Main Character'
This week we've also got a woman who compared J.K. Rowling to Rosa Parks, a self-made millionaire who thinks adults should only have boring friends and the only ethical Lockheed Martin employee.
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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 a mother hitting her breaking point over her husband eating a peach, a woman who compared J.K. Rowling to Rosa Parks, a self-made millionaire who thinks adults should only have boring friends and a writer who says people can't be mad at them for working for Lockheed Martin because... reasons?



Friday

Mary Catherine Starr

The character: Mary Catherine Starr, AKA the creator of @momlife_comics, AKA “peach mom”

The plot: Last Friday, someone tweeted out a frame from a webcomic created by Mary Catherine Starr, an artist, yoga teacher, blogger and mother who runs the Instagram account @momlife_comics. The account’s comics center on her experience of life as a mother and wife — and, in particular, the gendered division of labor in a marriage, and the mental and physical load of being a mom.



This particular comic had the misfortune of blowing up out of context on Twitter, where people almost unilaterally booed the character of the woman (and, by extension, the artist herself) for implying that her husband should have read her mind and not eaten the peach in their kitchen.

Of course, people didn’t stop there: other comics from @momlife_comics began to make the rounds.



The repercussion: People dunked liberally on the artist, especially when other comics began to make the rounds and cemented people’s negative impression of the artist in their minds. Because so many of the comics portray the uneven distribution of labor between the mother and the father, it gave people the impression that the woman was resentful of her husband and unhappy in her marriage.



But there were also a few tweets that sympathized with Peach Mom, or at least understood where she was coming from and that the hyperbole of the comics didn’t necessarily represent her true feelings about her family. After all, parenting is hard!



There was also a sub-genre of responses to Peach Mom from people hitting their breaking point with the few but very, very mighty main characters of the week.



Earlier this week, Peach Mom responded to the attention and backlash on her Instagram, sharing that she’s received not just cruel messages but suggestions to kill herself. She asked fans of the comic to share the ways in which it had helped them or made them feel seen — overall, a generous, unflappable response to a whole lot of noise that, however cringe you think her comics to be, she probably didn’t deserve.



Molly Bradley



Sunday

Allison Bailey

The character: Allison Bailey, barrister, founder of LGB Alliance, deeply offended person

The plot: JK Rowling is best known as the author of the “Harry Potter” books, but, if you’re a person who uses Twitter, you’ll also be familiar with her “gender critical” views. Over the past couple of years, the writer has posted about her issues with trans-inclusive language, spaces and healthcare, shared the anti-trans writing of others, and tweeted in support of those with transphobic views. If you’re unfamiliar with the controversy, a helpful summary of it can be found here and here.

Anyway — on Sunday, Twitter user Andi Zeisler tweeted:



This is where our Main Character comes in. Allison Bailey is a barrister and a founder of the LGB Alliance, an advocacy group that has been described as transphobic and “trans-exclusionary”. In  an attempt to defend JK Rowling, Bailey replied to Zeisler’s tweet and proceeded to draw a parallel that is equal parts incorrect and offensive.

“And Rosa Parks could have just sat at the back of the bus for a quiet life,” she retorted. “You've embarrassed yourself with this tweet & don't even know it.”



The repercussion: Hopefully this doesn’t require explaining, but: taking to Twitter to encourage the oppression of one of the most persecuted groups in society is not the same as taking a brave, unprecedented stand against the oppression of one of the most persecuted groups in society.

People had words along those lines for Bailey:



Darcy Jimenez



Monday

Steve Adcock


The character: Steve “Millionaire Habits” Adcock

The plot: Wait a second, we already wrote about this guy… his dumb tweet got turned into a meme already. Can we double dip on the schadenfreude? Hell yes we can! Because dunking on this man is hilarious. As we wrote yesterday:


“Self-made millionaire and financial influencer Steve Adcock AKA @SteveOnSpeed shared some unsolicited advice to millennials reaching their twilight years, by proclaiming, ‘By age 30, you should have a group of friends that talk business, money, and fitness, not politics and pop culture.’”



The repercussion: There can’t be anymore jokes at his expense left on Twitter, is there? Who are we kidding, of course there is! Bring on the replies!


  

Jared Russo



Ana Mardoll


The character: Ana Mardoll, extremely online Twitter personality, trans/disabled writer of young adult fiction, activist, Lockheed Martin employee

The plot: Mardoll, who has frequently been a lightning rod of controversy on Twitter with such hot takes as suggesting that it was “ableist to expect writers of books to read books” found themselves in hot water in the Twittersphere Monday after, despite their reputation for woke politics (which they’ve frequently weaponized), it was revealed they were a long-time employee at defense contractor Lockheed Martin.



After being shamed online for this revelation, Mardoll wrote a lengthy explanation justifying their employment at the company.

“I got this particular job because my family works for the same company,” Mardoll explained. “I stay because I am on an unusual part-time arrangement for medical reasons.”

“It’s hard to find a remote WFH job that will give me medical insurance but let me work 10-20 hours a week,” they added.


The repercussion: The news that Mardoll worked for the arms manufacturer landed like an incendiary air-to-surface missile among the extremely online set, with many people roasting them for virtue signaling while working for a company that seemed contrary to their values.

The revelation also seemed to run contrary to their youngish seeming Twitter persona which led people to believe Mardoll was a teenager.


But most people realized that this kerfuffle was way too inside baseball for most people who don’t eat, sleep and breathe on Twitter.



Mardoll later announced they were leaving Twitter due to the fall out from the controversy.

“It is clear to me that any attempt to stay would harm people I care about, including myself. I am sorry for many things, including the pain I have caused our community.”



James Crugnale


———

Read the previous edition of our One Main Character column, which included a guy who thinks the Satanic Panic was justified, a nightmarish oyster festival mascot and a whole lot more.

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

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