stop taking photos of strangers

A Wellness Grifter Who Thinks Glasses Are A Scam, And More Of This Week's 'One Main Character'

A Wellness Grifter Who Thinks Glasses Are A Scam, And More Of This Week's 'One Main Character'
Horrified to learn I've been spending money on contact lenses when all I really needed was a small tube of very expensive essential oils.
· 58.2k reads ·
· ·

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 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.



Monday

Bad 9/11 takes

The character: People — sharing horrible 9/11 takes and tweets — who don’t realize they should maybe just stay quiet on that day

The plot: September 11, 2023 was a Monday. It had football, people worked and life happened as it usually does. It’s also the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center buildings, the Pentagon and United 93 flight. Now, it’s also a day for people to share their favorite, or brand new, awful 9/11 takes in the form of horrifically tasteful and embarrassing tweets.



The repercussion: Some of these will be the cringe-worthy tweets themselves, and some will be reactions. Some will be tone deaf attempts at parody! It’s a real mixed bag, but there was certainly a theme brewing this week and it was people either ready to catch these things live and dunk on them, or just witness Twitter become a breeding ground for 9/11 tweets that should have stayed very much in the drafts.



Jared Russo



Saturday

Gabbi

The character: Gabbi, online shopper, Calvin Klein fan, bad at walking, averse to cobblers

The plot: Gabbi posted a picture of her Amazon shopping history which showed that she had purchased the same pair of Calvin Klein Brady pumps, albeit in different colors from time to time, 11 times over the past five years.

"The male mind cannot comprehend this," she posted along with the image.



A lot of non-males popped up to comment that their minds also had trouble processing this. OP did mention that she walks a lot, and that she kept multiple options at work to pick from, but still admitted that going to the cobbler was a "waste" of time.



The repercussion: It’s hard to get super mad at things like this, but mostly it was wearers of similar shoes and people with similar tastes who made it clear to the OP that avoiding cobblers isn’t smart.



Adwait Patil



Wednesday

Rax

The character: @raxsha, person who takes photos of strangers

The plot: On Wednesday, Twitter user Rax shared a photo of a bunch of similarly dressed men eating lunch and looking at their phones in a Chipotle. Along with the picture, she wrote that "midtown is such a dystopian bummer."



The repercussion: Many pointed out the obvious thing here, which is that taking photos of strangers and posting them online is not cool.

Others noted that these guys were probably on their lunch break, taking that precious free moment in their work day to check their phones, catch up on messages, watch some funny videos — which is normal and OK. None of those guys need to justify what they're doing anyway, but in any event, sitting on your phone is not grounds for being posted online without your knowledge.



Darcy Jimenez



Friday

Samantha Lotus

The character: Samantha Lotus, essential oils rep, person who doesn’t believe in glasses, grifter

The plot: The internet is a brilliant invention, but the fact it gives a platform to people like this makes me wonder if it’s all really worth it. Last week, the below video from TikToker @samantha_lotus was shared on Twitter by user @this_is_mallory.

In the clip, Samantha confidently declares that all optometrists are lying, and that nobody who wears glasses actually needs them. She adds that there are "mental, emotional, physical and even spiritual reasons" why people can’t see. Uh, yeah, I’ve got one of the physical reasons — I am short-sighted.

Samantha then goes on to say that for the low, low price of $11, people can attend her webinar and learn how to restore their vision. Ah, it all makes sense now — yet another wellness grift.



The repercussion: Pretty much everyone was united in ridiculing the video. Mallory, a Twitter and TikTok user dedicated to debunking wellness misinformation, even went so far as to sign up to Samantha’s wellness webinar and give a running commentary of what it involved (a lot of promo for an essential oil company Samantha is a rep for, as it turns out).


@mallorysthoughts #stitch with @Dr. Siyab, MD | Heart doc #greenscreen I paid $11 to take the Vision Healing Masterclass so you dont’ have to 🐍🐍🐍 #wellness #vision #fyp ♬ original sound - mallorysthoughts

Darcy Jimenez



Read the previous edition of our One Main Character column, featuring someone oversharing about their relationship, a gamer who still can't get over the whole pronoun thing and a conservative commentator still firmly stuck in the stone age.

Comments

  1. Is that you Samantha? I cannot tell since you said I no longer need glasses.

  2. likebudda1 7 months ago

    Hi Tracy, I think you are a little confused.

    Ametropia is a clearly defined medical term, it refers to any refractive error of the eye. There are subsets like hyperopia, myopia, anisometropia.

    We do not talk about a "cure" for it because it is not a disease (though some diseases can cause these conditions) but rather a physical condition of the eye that can be treated with corrective lenses or even surgery.

  3. John Doe 7 months ago

    "Needs glasses" is a medical condition?

    1. Steven 7 months ago

      “‘Needs hearing aids’ is a medical condition?”

    2. Kristopher Bel 7 months ago

      it would probably be described as 'having a visual impairment' but basically yes, just like 'needs insulin' is a medical condition or 'needs a cast and crutches' is a medical condition which might be better defined as having diabetes or having a broken bone, but short and sweet, yes they are medical conditions.


Cut Through The Chaos With Digg Edition

Sign up for Digg's daily morning newsletter to get the most interesting stories. Sent every morning.