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An NYT Columnist Lying About His Restaurant Bill, And More Of This Week's 'One Main Character'

An NYT Columnist Lying About His Restaurant Bill, And More Of This Week's 'One Main Character'
People seem to forget that not posting is always an option.
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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 painfully bad take on a horror classic, people who think the world should stop for content creators and an NYT writer embarrassing himself online.



Sunday

Bad take on 'The Shining'

The character: an anonymous YouTuber/movie critic we don’t want to identify

The plot: The below clip made the rounds this week; I don’t know who made it. And I don’t want to know. Sometimes you just can’t engage or let yourself be sucked down a rabbit hole, because then you end up in a vendetta, a quest for vengeance of the kind embarked on by Tarantino protagonists. We should not identify the man behind this horrifically bad and idiotic take, as to not give him any more clicks.



The repercussion: How could you possibly improve Stanley Kubrick’s "The Shining," which is already perfect? With CGI? And you think "Ready Player One" is better? I am going to lose my mind, turn into the Joker and get locked up in an asylum. This is just the all-time worst movie opinion imaginable, it goes against everything I stand for as a human with their brain stem intact — and other people online agree.



Jared Russo



Saturday

Self-absorbed influencers

The character: TikTok users/influencers who think the world revolves around them

The plot: Over the weekend, X user @schizarella shared a video from TikTok in which someone attempting to film "an aesthetic video" on the London Underground becomes increasingly frustrated by people walking past and ruining their shot. In the X post, @schizarella wrote that people should walk behind content creators or wait for them to finish filming their videos, and said people who refuse to do this "don't deserve to be part of a civilized society." Riiiight.



The repercussion: A bewildering number of users responded in agreement with OP’s sentiment — but, thankfully, most shared the correct view: that people going about their day, traveling through a busy London tube platform, have absolutely zero obligation to stop walking or move around a TikToker who has decided to film their cute outfit in public.



Darcy Jimenez


Thursday

David Brooks

The character: David Brooks, NYT columnist, air traveler, intuitive economist

The plot: Brooks, NYT columnist and gourmet food blamer, was at Newark airport recently, and posted a picture of his meal — which consisted of a burger that was gnawed at, crinkle cut fries and a cold beverage that looks alcoholic.

"This meal just cost me $78 at Newark Airport. This is why Americans think the economy is terrible," Brooks posted.



Brooks has been in the ring before and ended up battered by the public on previous occasions. This time was no different.


The repercussion:

With Brooks you can either clown the man, or the idea. People in the replies decided one of two things: that Brooks was lying, or that he'd racked up a $78 bill because of the drinks he was putting away, not the burger.

Eagle-eyed users soon identified the restaurant he’d eaten at, 1911 Smokehouse Barbeque, and the establishment itself confirmed on Facebook that 80 percent of the writer’s bill consisted of orders from the bar. Embarrassing — and to think, he could’ve just not posted.



Adwait Patil



Read the previous edition of our One Main Character column, featuring tasteless 9/11 tweets, yet another person taking photos of strangers in public, someone who claims glasses are a hoax and a woman who think it's normal to have several identical pairs of shoes.

Comments

  1. Brian Blake 7 months ago

    David Brooks... say it ain't so... I will be watching PBS tonight, to see if he is on. A whole new light, he will be seen in. Maybe it is about time he starts sifting in a replacement like Shields did(r.i.p.)


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