A Rapper Who Broke The Internet With A Story About Her Cousin's Friend's Alleged Vaccine Side Effects, 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 pop star with a highly suspect — and instantly infamous — COVID-19 vaccine anecdote, a transportation planner who said cities weren't designed to be fun, a prolific author who gave a wildly unpopular take on diversity in the media, a celebrated political prognosticator who got the California recall spectacularly wrong and a woman with a questionable tip about annual income.
Monday
Nicki Minaj
The character: Nicki Minaj, rapper, former "American Idol" host, progenitor of the "Miley, what's good" catchphrase, chief Cardi B antagonist, problematic health science communicator.
The plot: On Monday, Nicki Minaj tweeted to her 22.7 million followers that she was skipping the 2021 Met Gala due to its COVID-19 vaccine requirement, claiming that it caused her cousin's friend from Trinidad to become impotent. "His testicles became swollen. His friend was weeks away from getting married," Minaj alleged. "Now the girl called off the wedding."
The repercussion: MInaj's tweet about her cousin's friend's supposed vaccine side effect ailment lit the internet on fire and spawned countless memes as her dubious claim left people scratching their heads.
The fallout from the tweet was so bad that it prompted CNN's Jake Tapper to ask Dr. Anthony Fauci about whether the COVID vaccine could make men impotent.
"There's no evidence that it happens, nor is there any mechanistic reason to imagine that it would happen," Fauci explained. "So the answer to your question is no."
The Health Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr. Terrence Deyalsingh, even issued an exasperated statement saying that no such complication was reported in the country.
Despite the considerable blowback she received, Minaj continued to tweet through it.
Minaj subsequently said that she had been invited to speak at the White House. It was later clarified that the White House had offered her a call with a doctor to answer her questions about the vaccine.
She also later shared a sympathetic video from Fox News's Tucker Carlson.
Minaj also later claimed on Instagram that she was placed in "Twitter jail" for her tweet.
Twitter denied suspending her account.
Tuesday
Nilo Cobau
The character: Nilo Cobau, a Philadelphia-based transportation planner, a guy not all about fun.
The plot: On Tuesday, Cobau tweeted out his opinion that cities were "not about fun."
"They're places where people go to do serious things like study, and make vaccines, and negotiate contracts," he said.
He also added that fun was "merely a positive externality."
The repercussion: Cobau's tweet was dogpiled with hundreds of quote-tweets making fun of his contention that cities were "not about fun."
Dishonorable Mention
Joyce Carol Oates
The character: Joyce Carol Oates, prolific author, former Princeton University professor, notorious foot pic poster.
The plot: On Tuesday, Oates weighed in on the diversity problem at prestigious magazines. After Erin Overbey, an archive editor at the New Yorker, called out her own magazine for failing to give editorial positions to Black editors, Oates hopped on Twitter to say that "'prestigious magazines' are not created by God. they came into existence when people got together to start them. instead of complaining about existing magazines, start your own." She added, "Instead of complaining about the status quo, change it. Nothing so exciting as starting something new."
The repercussion: Oates's suggestion — that if people were upset at magazines for being too white they could just go start their own magazine — did not go over well, as dozens of writers called her out for the absurdity and tone-deafness of her claim.
Wednesday
Nate Silver
The character: Nate Silver, political prognosticator, founder of data journalism blog FiveThirtyEight, numbers guy, frequent hot take-haver.
The plot: Following California Governor Gavin Newsom's easy defeat of the recall effort (the race was called 12 minutes after polls closed), an old tweet from Nate Silver from August was unearthed which proclaimed, "Pretty decent chance Newsom gets recalled." He added, "Democrats could potentially keep the seat if they urged their voters to consolidate behind an alternative Democrat but instead they're telling them not to vote on the replacement!"
The repercussion: Silver's decidedly unprophetic tweet went viral, and political junkies delighted in the schadenfreude of the prognosticator's epic misfire.
Dishonorable Mention
@sagebeatlove
The character: @sagebeatlove, podcaster, money discourse thinkfluencer.
The plot: On Wednesday, @sagebeatlove tweeted that people wanted an annual salary of $100,000 to be considered "a lot of money" but that, in fact, "it's peanuts." "Is it life changing money? Sure," she quipped. "But that's because, again: You don't have it."
The repercussion: @sagebeatlove's tweet hit a sour note and was buried under an avalanche of quote-tweets questioning her tortuous logic.
Some netizens dug up old tweets where @sagebeatlove tweeted in favor of forgiving student debt.
Despite being mercilessly ratioed, @sagebeatlove doubled down on her original take.
Read the previous edition of our One Main Character column, which includes a guy who said a dinner with Jay-Z was worth more than a $500,000 lump sum and more.
Did we miss a main character from this week? Please send tips to [email protected].
