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A Self-Appointed Turnstile Cop, And More Of This Week's 'One Main Character'

Molly Bradley
Molly Bradley
A Self-Appointed Turnstile Cop, And More Of This Week's 'One Main Character'
This week we've also got a woman all for stigmatizing large breasts and a style guide with a well-meaning but slightly perplexing piece of terminology advice.
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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 self-appointed turnstile cop, a woman all for stigmatizing large breasts and a style guide with a well-meaning but slightly perplexing piece of terminology advice.



January 11

Helen Andrews

The character: Helen Andrews, Senior Editor, pro-bono cop, math savant

The plot: Andrews, a Senior Editor at The American Conservative, decided to put in a shift for the DC police when she decided to count the number of people who jumped the turnstile. She didn’t stop there. Being a good analyst, Andrews counted them at different lines and stations before coming to a conclusion.

“Average number of fare jumpers spotted in five minutes was 22,” she wrote.



Is not paying the subway fare a problem? Maybe. Will being a snitch about it help? Not really. Many have tried, but it never works. Edwards doesn’t seem like the extremely online type, so we can forgive her.


The repercussion: The tweet laid low for a few weeks, but it eventually caught wind of public transit twitter. Fare evasion being something that points to bigger problems, rather than delinquent individualis, is something people on the Internet still believe in. Thank god.



Except Chris Hayes. The MSNBC host weighed in on the subject, in a different conversation, and as expected received a similar response.



Adwait Patil




Sunday

@AlicevanHerpen

The character: @AlicevanHerpen, big boob hater

The plot: One pretty reliable rule for not upsetting people on the internet is to avoid making shitty, unsolicited comments about other people’s bodies. Clearly, @AlicevanHerpen didn’t get the memo, because they came through this week with a take that is as mean as it is stupid and untrue.



The repercussion: Twitter users were, understandably, outraged by the anti-big boob discrimination  — and rightfully set the poster straight.



Darcy Jimenez




Thursday

The AP Stylebook

The character: The AP Stylebook’s Twitter account, stigma watchdog, Twitter’s copyeditor

The plot: This one is actually a rare wholesome character: the AP Twitter account posted a general note that using “the” in front of labels for groups of people is, generally speaking, not a great way to refer to human beings. There are some obvious examples — using “the” in front of any race, for instance, is a no-go — and some less obvious ones, like “the poor” and “the mentally ill,” which the AP Stylebook brought to everyone’s attention.

But it included one item in its list that, while still entirely valid, seemed not quite like the others.



The repercussion: Obviously, right-leaning Twitter users rolled their eyes and accused AP of taking wokeness too far, and we’re going to ignore those responses, as they’re neither useful nor clever. What we did love were the responses wondering how, exactly, we should refer to people from France.



Molly Bradley


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Read the previous edition of our One Main Character column, which included a woman who thinks helping friends is for chumps, a nepo baby/shitposter who just plain sucks and more.

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


Photo credit: Samson Katt via Pexels

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