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A Condiment Manufacturer With Canada's Grossest New Summer Product, And More Of This Week's 'One Main Character'

Molly Bradley
Molly Bradley
A Condiment Manufacturer With Canada's Grossest New Summer Product, And More Of This Week's 'One Main Character'
This week we've also got a Republican with the most offensive Juneteenth tweet imaginable, a CEO with 6 kids who definitely got where he did all by himself and a TSA spokesperson protecting us from villainous liquids over 3.4oz.
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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's characters include a Canadian condiment company that released a gross summer product, a Republican with the most offensive Juneteenth tweet imaginable, a CEO with 6 kids who definitely got where he did in his career all by himself and a TSA spokesperson who proudly displayed her roundup of air travel’s most dangerous villains: bottles of liquid over 3.4oz.



Monday

French’s, and also Canada

The character: French’s, the condiment company, and also Canada, which is being held responsible for French’s latest product

The plot: On Monday, the condiment manufacturer tweeted about a new summer product: ketchup popsicles.



Yep, you read that right, and it’s not a joke: there are now ketchup-flavored popsicles available to Canadians.

Look: I personally love ketchup. I love fries and onion rings, etc, but I enjoy ketchup probably just as much; each is a vehicle for the other. But ketchup popsicles are beyond the pale even for me.

The repercussion: People were not only grossed out, but disappointed that French’s just gave Americans and the rest of the world more ammunition against Canada.



Molly Bradley



Tuesday

Steve King

The character: Steve King, Republican politician, author, awful person

The plot: Juneteenth, a US public holiday observed on June 19th, commemorates the emancipation of enslaved African Americans and was first recognised as a federal holiday last year. It’s an important time to reflect on the historic violence and lasting impact of colonialism in America ⁠— but Steve King decided to post this horrible, horrible tweet instead.



If I’m reading it correctly, King is implying here that life as a slave is preferable to being aborted. It’s a truly horrendous thing to say any day of the year, but to post it on Juneteenth is especially disgusting.

It’s worth mentioning here that King has been repeatedly criticized for his racist rhetoric and white-nationalist affiliations (a Washington Post article once described him as "the Congressman most openly affiliated with white nationalism”). It probably goes without saying that the guy is also staunchly opposed to abortion, and the “political positions” section of his WikiPedia page makes for pretty depressing reading.


The repercussion: Unsurprisingly, King’s extremely gross tweet garnered a LOT of criticism.



There were also, quite rightly, a lot of people making fun of him.



And I think Questlove summed up every decent human being’s response when he simply tweeted:



Darcy Jimenez



Tobi Emonts-Holley


The character: Tobi Emonts-Holley, CEO, father of six and peak performance advocate

The plot: At this point it’s getting hard to tell people who shtpost on Twitter with CEO in their bio and actual CEOs’ tweets who reads like shtposts. Fortunately Tobi, a CEO with a ‘peak performance mindset,’ forgot to delete his old tweets, making it easier for the world to slot him into the latter category.

There are some deleted tweets, so here’s the TL;DR: he wrote a hustle culture thread on Twitter which was devoid of any indication that he does chores, childcare or other work for his home.

This kind of drivel is everyday Twitter fodder, but when you’ve got even worse tweets in the past, it becomes a circus show.


The repercussion: People were quick to call out how Emonts-Holley’s old tweets about his wife cleaning their kids bedroom for the ninth time, while she was 37 weeks pregnant, was probably the reason he was out tweeting like a carefree college freshman.



Adwait Patil



Wednesday

Lisa Farbstein

The character: Lisa Farbstein, TSA spokesperson, peanut butter thief, not a character made up by The Onion

The plot: Officials from the Transportation Security Administration at Syracuse Hancock International Airport in Upstate New York put together a display of dozens of confiscated liquids taken from travelers, which included toothpaste, Capri Sun pouches, tubs of peanut butter, snow globes and other items forbidden to pass through security.

TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein shared a photo of the taboo liquid materials.

“Display of oversized liquids, gels, and aerosols that travelers had in their carry-on bags at the ⁦Syracuse Airport,” she tweeted. “The limit for liquids through a checkpoint is 3.4 ounces.”

Liquids (with the exception of baby formula and prescription medicine) have been banned from carry-on luggage on domestic flights since 2006 following a foiled terrorist plot to detonate liquid explosives on a plane. (Some have pointed out that there’s a technology available that would allow travelers to carry liquids through security without incident.) Though it’s rare that officials have so publicly extolled the policy as an accomplishment.


The repercussion: Farbstein’s photo demonstrating the assortment of harmless items confiscated by TSA sparked a torrent of mockery, uniting both sides of the political aisle with a ratio of epic proportions, as many people wondered why this was something the agency should be proud of. Others questioned whether airport security should be spending their time and money doing something else more useful.




James Crugnale


———

Read the previous edition of our One Main Character column, which included a Congressman who is unfamiliar with the wonders of TV magic.

Did we miss a main character from this week? Please send tips to [email protected].

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