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GRINCH VIBES

A Woman Who Throws Away Her Kids' Halloween Candy, And More Of This Week's 'One Main Character'

Molly Bradley
Molly Bradley
A Woman Who Throws Away Her Kids' Halloween Candy, And More Of This Week's 'One Main Character'
This week we've also got a journalist who is seemingly new to the concept of fiction, a tech mogul who introduced financial inequality to Twitter.
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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 journalist who is seemingly new to the concept of fiction, a tech mogul who introduced financial inequality to Twitter and a woman who literally throws away her kids’ Halloween candy.



Thursday

Brooke LaMantia

The character: Brooke LaMantia, journalist for The Cut, person who has not heard of fiction

The plot: Charles Foster Kane. Norma Desmond. Vito Corleone. Paddington Bear. The history of fictional characters in film runs deep, and only the best of the best truly stand out and make you want to google more about them. Audiences will be introduced to Lydia Tar soon, the main character played by Cate Blanchett. And of course, there’s a lot to talk about.

Here is the article everyone is making fun of, though, and the biggest point of discussion for this Oscar worthy film. The opening paragraph is quite the read.



The repercussion: As one person who responded to The Cut’s review said, “You should hire writers who understand the basic concept of fiction.”


                 

Jared Russo




Tuesday

Elon Musk

The character: Elon Musk, lifetime Main Character

The plot: Unfortunately it’s likely that Musk will become a perennial peripheral in this column. The class clown now owns Twitter, so we must brace ourselves for the worst. It’s hardly been a month, but Elon and his band of brothers have already picked fights with politicians, haggled prices online and made employees sleep at work. If this is the beginning of the end, it may be a very long one.

Musk’s first big declaration was charging $8 per month (down from $20) for a newly tiered verification system to defeat the bots and put everyone on the same page.



The repercussion: Musk picked fights with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over the pricing of her merch, however AOC simply told him that she didn’t skimp on the material or union labor and that’s why costs were that high. While Musk’s public haggling with Stephen King was laughable, he was also quietly prepping huge layoffs and reports suggest he’s operating without much of an organized structure.



Adwait Patil




Agnes Callard

The character: Agnes Callard, philosophy professor at the University of Chicago, Halloween Grinch

The plot: I had personally never heard of this person until the viral tweet in question, but following Halloween, Agnes Callard decided to tweet about a “tradition” that her family (well, really just she) observes: throwing away her kids’ candy Halloween night after they go to bed.



It’s a tough tweet to read — is Callard proud of this fact? Is she pitying her children? Mocking them? Thinking the tweet makes her relatable? Or is she relishing her controversial take? It’s tough to say, though a follow-up tweet she wrote after the backlash started rolling in clarifies that she is neither kidding nor sorry:



The repercussion: People did not look kindly on Callard’s Halloween “tradition,” and were quick to make assumptions about her parenting more broadly.



A few people brought up other things that have made Callard a notorious figure on Twitter and in academia, including the fact that she apparently very publicly left her husband, also a University of Chicago professor, for a graduate student. Whether or not there’s any connection between that fact and the Halloween candy, it’s certainly… interesting.



Molly



———

Read the previous edition of our One Main Character column, which included a guy who took a very expensive Uber ride, two publications that published some painful pieces this week, a “Friend” who decided to come for Keanu Reeves and two rare honorable characters.

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

Comments

  1. John Doe 1 year ago

    "Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers"

    That would be like Ford saying "we cannot rely entirely on new car sales"

    Selling advertising is the only reason Twitter exists.

    1. DukeofWulf 1 year ago

      Pretty spot-on comparison actually, since car makers are also doing this. Stupid, since it undermines their core selling point: a functional, full-featured core product. https://thehustle.co/07142022-automakers-subscriptions/

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