oversharing
An Anti-Aging Obsessive Who Insists On Showing Us His Naked Body, And More Of This Week's 'One Main Character'
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.
Each day on twitter there is one main character. The goal is to never be it
— maple cocaine (@maplecocaine) January 3, 2019
This week, the Main Characters include an extremely normal guy who wants to live forever, someone who's very proud of their dishonest behavior and an X user with an insensitive take on mental health issues.
Warning: one of today's entries deals with the subject of suicide.
Thursday
Paul George
The character: Paul George, LA Clippers superstar, complainer
The plot: The LA Clippers are a team full of former MVPs, Finals MVPs and All-Stars, well past their primes, but still good. The team is incredibly disappointing this season, though, and fans are letting the players know — oftentimes while on the court and playing a game. This isn't the first time this has happened, especially to Russell Westbrook, a volatile and controversial guard.
But then this happened.
Clippers’ Russell Westbrook on verbal exchange with courtside fan after loss to Nuggets in LA: “Fans kind of have the right of way to say whatever they want, but like I told you: any disrespect to me or my family, I won’t allow it. … This is our job.” pic.twitter.com/xsrqOOid2S
— Ben Golliver (@BenGolliver) November 28, 2023
Paul George on Russell Westbrook’s fan interaction:
— Joey Linn (@joeylinn_) November 28, 2023
“Nowhere else can people go to someone’s job and disrespect you at your job and it be okay… When people come to work, they should be respected at their job.” pic.twitter.com/mkqUx1zCne
The repercussion: Paul George was defending his friend and teammate, but absolutely put his foot into his own mouth with these comments. Don't complain about the struggles of your basketball career when most people are ready to go, knives out, on comparing salaries and job difficulties with famous, rich athletes. You can talk about the refs, or other players, but when you come at fans, that's when things will go south for you very quickly.
When I worked returns at Best Buy somebody threw a microwave at me because they didn't have a receipt. https://t.co/2adZQMx5mY
— ian karmel (@IanKarmel) November 28, 2023
Tell me you have never worked in the Retail/Service industry without telling me you have never worked in the Retail/Service industrie.
— J. Brandon Powell (@JBrandonPowell) November 28, 2023
NBA players live in a bubble. A Charmin-wrapped bubble.
— Flashy Gus (@DynamicFlashy) November 28, 2023
True. Politicians, police officers, musicians, etc never get disrespected or shit on. Forgot. Only athletes get it.
— Sammy Says (@letsgosammy1) November 28, 2023
Meanwhile nba players especially superstars disrespect the refs every single day on the job 😂😂
— Logan (@licuefy) November 29, 2023
Teachers listening to Paul George talk: https://t.co/BzELDdKG6j pic.twitter.com/YjSNTLoWpX
— 🦋Garth Gagnier🦋 (@Grrr22) November 29, 2023
He’s never worked at a hospital 🤣🤣☠️
— ⎔𝓚𝟭𝓷𝓰𝓗𝓮𝔁⎔ (@HexK1ng) November 29, 2023
That’s shit gets wild
Jared Russo
Sunday
@ngughii
The character: X user @ngughii, opinion haver
The plot: There are innumerous thoughtless, hurtful posts made online each and every day. In fact, that's kind of X's whole brand at this point, but the simplicity featured here is matched only by its cruelty. Many folks know and love someone who has struggled with suicidal ideation. Heck, there are lots of people reading this very tweet who have dealt with suicidal ideation themselves.
If you or someone you know is dealing with thoughts of suicide, please reach out to the National Suicide Provention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
How do y'all view suicide? I view it as a coward move.
— felloh🦋 (@ngughii) November 24, 2023
Unsurprisingly, many folks aren't stoked to be faced with such callous treatment of a serious mental health issue. Responses haven't been exceptionally warm so far.
The repercussion: While the personal repercussions for some random X user being mean online are next to nil, the repercussions for those reading this tweet are all too real. Now, some people not only have to face crushing thoughts of suicide, but also have to deal with shame piled on top. Thanks a lot, @ngughii!
https://t.co/0nUbJQ4daj pic.twitter.com/iuIYACRcZO
— Jared (@Name3309) November 27, 2023
Trust me, you need to have major balls to do it, the human survival instinct is very powerful to beat..
— Keith Ochieng (@Ochieng2Keith) November 24, 2023
it’s literally not cowardly to go against your bodies natural instincts and try to end your own life. i wish yall were more gentle https://t.co/qBu1ZHcDhR
— ❤️🔥 G A W D ❤️🔥 (@_benjvmins_) November 26, 2023
Slaves literally drowned themselves on purpose on the slave ships to avoid what was coming for them and what they had to endure. Nothing about suicide is cowardly https://t.co/lklCMAAC0b
— Genie (@adoseofmars) November 27, 2023
It is actually a very brave move. Your instincts automatically fight for survival. Going against the grain needs some courage.
— Rahab N. Mwathi (@NjeriMwathi) November 24, 2023
But then, do not underestimate mental illness. Most suicide victims are sick and crying for help.
Depression is a disease of the mind. Do you also think people who die from cancer are cowards?
— 8-ʙɪᴛ™ (@The8BitIdiot) November 27, 2023
Stop speaking on what you haven’t experienced
— OLUYEMI ⛈️ (@VickySoDreamy) November 27, 2023
Oh you posted on the anniversary of my brother’s. Today is the anniversary of us finding him, so his official death date.
— Venus Enby🪞✨ (@chironbarron) November 26, 2023
It’s a response to unbearable pain usually. Saying it is a coward move is retraumatizing to ppl bereaved by suicide & ppl who’ve attempted alike. Do better
Sunday
Jake Ward
The character: Jake Ward, SEO expert, thief
The plot: Last week, Jake Ward — founder of a company called Byword, which generates AI-written articles — wrote on X that he and his team had pulled off an "SEO heist." In the ensuing thread, he admits to stealing 3.6 million total traffic from a competitor and outlines exactly how they did it.
We pulled off an SEO heist that stole 3.6M total traffic from a competitor.
— Jake Ward (@jakezward) November 24, 2023
We got 489,509 traffic in October alone.
Here's how we did it: pic.twitter.com/sTJ7xbRjrT
We pulled off an SEO heist using AI.
— Jake Ward (@jakezward) November 24, 2023
1. Exported a competitor’s sitemap
2. Turned their list of URLs into article titles
3. Created 1,800 articles from those titles at scale using AI
18 months later, we have stolen:
- 3.6M total traffic
- 490K monthly traffic
The repercussion: People were deeply unimpressed, if not disgusted, by Ward's brazen thievery, and his contribution to making the internet a big, boring mass of regurgitated, algorithm-driven content.
If you want to understand why the internet as we know it will be functionally unusable in a couple of years, this thread from a fucking sociopath is a great place to start https://t.co/2g4AxZkSsm
— Aran (@aranptappers) November 27, 2023
Google needs to either admit they have no real control over how Google indexes stuff or kill off every company like this https://t.co/NagMqdqGKG
— Ed Zitron (@edzitron) November 27, 2023
Congratulations on defecting in the prisoner's dilemma
— bob's burgers urbanist 🐿️ (@yhdistyminen) November 27, 2023
I can't believe you are bragging about this.
— Noble Guardian (@Voidjumper) November 27, 2023
i don't know the names and addresses of all the people who made the internet full of meaningless garbage that's designed to trick robots and is not only completely useless to humans but actively obstructs you from reaching the useful stuff. but here's one of them https://t.co/JjVfw8Wz8N
— thomas violence (@thomas_violence) November 27, 2023
you made a tangibly worse and less useful facsimile of something that already exists and then tricked 3.6 million people into reading it, benefiting absolutely nobody other than yourself. ai is amazing https://t.co/z2AFRJEuY1
— Stan's Account (@tristandross) November 27, 2023
You should legitimately have your pages deranked for filling search engines with actual slop
— Alex (@alexflorias) November 27, 2023
Thanks for polluting the internet bro
— Grit Capital, Ancient God of Commmerce (@GritGrowthCap) November 27, 2023
and you're proud of this? pumping garbage to get to the top of the trash heap? what about trying to make actually good and useful content... oh that's right, it's hard 🤔
— Kyle Cheromcha (@cheromcha) November 24, 2023
a behind the scenes look at how internet search is being destroyed as we speak https://t.co/fcODyQ13LU
— Tracy Chou 🌻 (@triketora) November 27, 2023
Darcy Jimenez
Saturday
Bryan Johnson
The character: Bryan Johnson, entrepreneur, anti-aging enthusiast, normal guy
The plot: Bryan Johnson is a wealthy entrepreneur who is best known for his mission to reverse the aging process and live forever. It's probably silly to expect normal posts from a guy who's dedicated his life to the pursuit of eternal youth — which involves swapping blood with his teenage son — but this particular one on X has sparked a lot of responses.
Death was my only wish for 10 years. Depression had me in an unbreakable choke hold.
— Zero (@bryan_johnson) November 23, 2023
Giving thanks today that I now feel an insatiable thirst for life. Sending you all🫶🏻 pic.twitter.com/Yv8bO5e2gD
The repercussion: There's the obvious weirdness of the photo, sure, but people were also fascinated by Johnson's talk of overcoming depression and now having an "insatiable thirst for life." Makes sense — you wouldn't want to live forever if you didn't enjoy being alive — but not everyone was convinced.
How I be acting in the group chat after a spin class https://t.co/kYZY5na81w
— Sean (@seanbeegee) November 24, 2023
Bryan, will you allow yourself one celebratory cranberry today? The world wants to know.
— Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) November 23, 2023
would a depressed guy do THIS https://t.co/0Cp9Xf7QJP
— autumn enthusiast✌🏾🐝 (@Vanessa_ABee) November 24, 2023
yeah man, this picture definitely makes it look like your days of struggling with mental illness are behind you https://t.co/aXTvYPTydp
— my life is a living hell. every minute is torture (@on_da_spectrum) November 23, 2023
if dennis and mac could have and raise baby together, it would grow up to be this guy https://t.co/NkYpOMAMJh
— water bottle of malort at the gym (@oldlinds) November 23, 2023
does anyone else lowkey wanna see it https://t.co/BKD3pLlyO6
— dyl (@speckvoices) November 24, 2023
I’m using my blood boy’s plasma as gravy this year.
— Mr. Teen Crypto 2015 (@elonconomy) November 23, 2023
This is the weirdest Thanksgiving post ever dude
— William Samples (@sampleswill) November 23, 2023
"Insatiable thirst for life" is an interesting way of saying cripplingly afraid of death https://t.co/cnT11Kyrbd
— Kurt (@KurtGoKrazy) November 24, 2023
What does this man want from us exactly https://t.co/UxvhdMLSM0
— Jason Okundaye (@jasebyjason) November 24, 2023
Darcy Jimenez
Read the previous edition of our One Main Character column, which featured a skydiving baby dilemma, a guy who bikes his cat around without much regard for safety and a new Amazon office that used to be a prison.