Home → The Classics → Blog
The Main Character
Published:
The person or brand who has done something that has drawn (typically negative) attention to them on social media. Typically respond with mass scrubbing, an account lockdown or corncobbing.
In Other Words
The possible origin:
Each day on twitter there is one main character. The goal is to never be it.
Notable Main Characters
I may or may not update this frequently. Mostly trying to keep it funny so there won’t be any unbrazen bigotry or truly serious issues.
| Main Character | Date | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Bret Stephens—New York Times conservative | 2019 | was so fragile at being called a bedbug by a professor that Bret snitched to his bosses and wrote about how this is proof of the intolerant left on his New York Times column. Somehow invoked Godwin’s Law as he searched “Jews as bedbugs” on Google books to mint a quote. |
| CD Projekt Red—polish game studio and publisher | December 2020 | Cyberpunk 2077. Honestly, I really enjoyed the game (I played on the base Xbox One) even with all the bugs, some of which broke the ending. Should have delayed it. |
| Bean Dad—musician and podcaster | January 2021 | watched his hungry daughter struggle to open a can of beans for 6 hours. Went into hyperdrive after his old shitty tweets were discovered. |
| Donald Trump—former US President | 2016–January 8, 2021 | Do I have to spell it out? Start with the Trump Tweet Archive. Sucked but at least he didn’t start two illegal wars. |
| Melvin Capital—hedge fund | January 2021 | lost $4.5 billion (half it’s value) trying to short GameStop. Shorted CD Projekt Red for what it’s worth |
| Robinhood—online securities trading platform | January 2021 | restricted the trade of Gamestop stonks during the short squeeze which caused the aforementioned hedge fund to lose a lot of money. |
| Kellyanne Conway—Senior Counselor to Former President Donald Trump | January 2021 (long month hey?) | posts revenge child porn of her own daughter |
| Any conservative pundit | Every once in a while | doing or saying something mindboggling. |
| Jason Fried and (Mostly) Daniel Heinemeier Hansson (DHH)—heads of Basecamp who make project management software and email | April 2021 | announced drastic workplace changes like reducing benefits, stopping 360 reviews, ending the (barley started) diversity and inclusion program and banning “political” discussion. Employees learned of these changes when the public did since the heads posted it publically first. Spectacular fallout ensues made worse by them posting through itn resulting in 20/58 (mostly senior) employees leaving1. Read On Basecamp by John Breen to understand what the exact problem is. |
Maybe he looked at the Coinbase situation and thought it would go similarly. Thing is, Basecamp didn’t pay in equity that would become actual money due to an upcoming IPO. Also the people who work at Coinbase wouldn’t mind such a move (they work on crypto). It’s possible that he’ll find newer employees with “viewpoint diversity”. ↩︎