A Woman With A Weird Take On 'Ted Lasso,' A Pulitzer Prize Winner Who Besmirched Indian Food 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.
This week's characters include a Pulitzer Prize winner who made an ill-advised critique of a cuisine enjoyed by well over 1.3 billion people, a woman with a curious hot take about "Ted Lasso," a Harvard professor who didn't do his homework, a Daily Beast columnist with inexplicable vitriol for small-town culture and a CNN political reporter who might want to do better political reporting.
Monday
Gene Weingarten
The character: Gene Weingarten, syndicated humor columnist at The Washington Post, Pulitzer Prize winner, problematic ogler.
The plot: Weingarten wrote a column in the Washington Post calling Indian food "the only ethnic cuisine in the world insanely based entirely on one spice" β referring to Indian curries.
The repercussion: Weingarten's screed against Indian food went viral, with countless outraged readers and celebrities calling him out for his erroneous claim that the cuisine only featured a single spice. "Top Chef" host Padma Lakshmi was one of Weingarten's most outspoken critics, telling him to "kindly f**k off."
Following the "blowback," Weingarten continued to double down on his criticism of Indian food, saying he takes nothing back.
The criticism of Weingarten carried over to other social media platforms, including TikTok.
Lakshmi could not believe Weingarten continued to dig himself deeper.
Incensed, she wrote a response column in the Washington Post, slamming Weingarten's polemic as "unintentional anti-humor, regurgitating an unimaginative, racist joke with no punchline."
The Washington Post subsequently added a correction to Weingarten's column, saying, "A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Indian cuisine is based on one spice, curry, and that Indian food is made up only of curries, types of stew. In fact, India's vastly diverse cuisines use many spice blends and include many other types of dishes."
Weingarten later issued a mea culpa, saying he had meant his column to be humorous and apologized for insulting Indian food.
Dishonorable Mention
The character: Carol Blymire, communications and public policy executive, "Ted Lasso" critical theorist.
The plot: Blymire responded to a critique of season 2 of "Ted Lasso" by "Daily Show" producer Daniel Radosh by claiming that the real reason people didn't like the show is because Jason Sudeikis's title character fulfills women's sexual needs before his own. "You hate that women tell men what they want sexually and get it. You feel threatened by confident women," she said.
The repercussion: Blymire's contention that Lasso's critics have beef with the Apple TV+ soccer comedy because of the show's sexual gender equality simultaneously befuddled and entertained fans of the show.
The incredulity over Blymire's tweet appeared to be also reflected by Sudeikis himself, who apparently liked the above tweet:
Following the furor of Blymire's tweet, the show's social media account quipped, "I love eating out. Especially at the ol' Crown and Anchor. Eating out is good for the soul."
Tuesday
Martin Kulldorff
The character: Martin Kulldorff, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, decidedly not a historian.
The plot: On Tuesday, Kulldorff tweeted to his 112k followers, "Never before have carriers been blamed for infecting the next sick person."
The repercussion: Kulldorff's historically questionable tweet got ratioed by hundreds of netizens who fact-checked the professor over his claims, which, uh, run contrary to history.
The most frequently cited historical figure that Kulldorff forgot was Typhoid Mary, who was famously blamed for infecting 53 people with typhoid fever.
To his credit, Kulldorff later acknowledged the inaccuracy of his tweet.
Dishonorable Mention
Erin Gloria Ryan
The character: Erin Gloria Ryan, Daily Beast columnist, "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" writer, diner critic.
The plot: On Tuesday, Ryan took a shot at rural Americans for some reason, saying that despite their reputation for living in "cradles of virtue," country folk had a "unearned sense of moral impunity." She added, "I've said this before but the people who hang out in small town diners are lonely a**holes who are there to get off on being waited on."
The repercussion: Ryan's tweet got cold reception from the internet, who found her opinions about people who hang out in diners to be disdainful of small-town Americans. But the bigger question sparked by her tweet was why she felt the need to hate on diners and the people who eat there.
Wednesday
Chris Cillizza
The character: Chris Cillizza, CNN political reporter and editor-at-large, self-described eight-figure earner.
The plot: Cillizza tweeted out a photo of a Jeep with a tire cover featuring a spartan helmet, and quipped, "Is this an MF Doom tire cover? If so awesome" β alluding to the late rapper who wore a signature metal mask.
The repercussion: Cillizza's tweet was roundly mocked on political Twitter, as the spartan helmet is widely seen as a far-right political symbol frequently seen at pro-Trump rallies.
Read the previous edition of our One Main Character column, which includes an ill-advised TikTok video that went viral much to the chagrin of "Broke Bobby" and more.
Did we miss a main character from this week? Please send tips to [email protected].
