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A Couple That Insists On Walking Barefoot Outside, And More Of This Week's 'One Main Character'

Darcy Jimenez
Darcy Jimenez
A Couple That Insists On Walking Barefoot Outside, And More Of This Week's 'One Main Character'
Sure, playing music out loud in public is annoying — but is it really a sign of social decay?
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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, we've got a baffling movie take, some thinly veiled racism, a controversial opinion on "anti-social" behavior and a couple that's worryingly committed to the barefoot lifestyle.



Wednesday

Andrej Karpathy

The character: Andrej Karpathy, Slovak-Canadian computer scientist, podcaster, old movie hater

The plot: Let us know if you've heard this one before, but a man on a podcast just said something ridiculous about an art form he isn't a part of — specifically, that movies made before 1995 aren't good.

Slow? Boring? Has he seen "Jurassic Park" or "Terminator 2: Judgment Day"? Does he not believe in such thing as a "slow burn"?


The repercussion: Should podcasts be banned? Were they a mistake? Should anybody get to say anything into a microphone for the world to hear?

Calling movies from before 1995 "naive" is the real head-spinner, like what are they naive about? Does this include every movie, or just the ones he's seen? Why is 1995 the cutoff — was there a shift in filmmaking at the turn of the century that we don't know about? Digital photography didn't happen until later into the 2000s, so it couldn't be that... or maybe he's just wrong. That's the conclusion the internet seems to have come to.



Jared Russo



Wednesday

Tom Cotton

The character: Tom Cotton, junior US senator from Arkansas, D-tier Joseph McCarthy impersonator

The plot: Tom Cotton, while asking questions of TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, repeatedly harangued the Singaporian tech exec about being some sort of secret Chinese communist. It was deeply embarrassing for everyone involved, but that's just par for the course with Tommy boy.


The repercussion: If demanding a federal occupation during the BLM protests didn't dislodge his support from Arkansas voters, him blowing hard about his Sinophobia probably isn't going to move the needle. It did make for some sick dunks though.

@jamellebouie #stitch with @MSNBC ♬ original sound - b-boy bouiebaisse

Grant Brunner


Monday

Jamie Harris

The character: Jamie Harris, writer, narrative voice tester, anti-social tendency identifier

The plot: TV writer Jamie Harris fired off a take about "anti-social tendencies," and how she considered the people who play loud music, or use their speaker phone, in an "enclosed public space" to have them.

Harris threaded a few more thoughts, doubling down on how behavior like this "should be a symptom of narcissistic personality disorder" and is a "bigger sign of societal decay than lots of low-level crimes." Yikes.


The repercussion: X users tried to pick apart and analyze what was going through Harris's mind when she shared the take — and while the majority of respondents approached the conversation with humor, a large portion did stand with the sentiment of the initial post.


Adwait Patil


Wednesday

@christifritz

The character: Christi and Seth Fritz, TikTok couple, barefoot living advocates

The plot: On Wednesday, an X user shared a TikTok video showing a couple cutting the bottoms of their shoes out so that they could roam the streets barefoot without anyone noticing.

According to the post, the pair are so committed to the barefoot lifestyle that the were willing to destroy a shoe collection worth more than $20,000 — just so that businesses can no longer challenge or refuse to serve them for going shoe-less.

Aside from the fact that walking outside on the street barefoot is gross, destroying so many pairs of perfectly good shoes is horribly — almost offensively — wasteful. If you must keep one pair of deceptive, sole-less sneakers, fine — but why ruin all of them? Why not donate all those other pairs to charity or people who need them?


The repercussion: People online largely responded the way you'd expect them to: in disgust and disbelief.


Darcy Jimenez



Read the previous edition of our One Main Character column, which included a bad Taylor Swift take, casual crush-shaming and some questionable trad-wife content.

Comments

  1. Suzanna Dobson 3 months ago

    Walking barefoot like this is the epitome of white privilege. There are children in developing nations where there is a direct correlation between the health of a child and whether they wear shoes. I wonder if hookworm is the new accessory for 2024?

  2. John Doe 3 months ago

    The woman stating that playing audio in public spaces is a sign of mental illness or being a sociopath is spot on. It's like farting in an elevator or spitting on the floor indoors. You just don't do it and if you do you are a horrible person.

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