Neil deGrasse Tyson Ruins Christmas For Everyone 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 an astrophysicist who decided to debunk the existence of Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, a balloon letter artist whose shtick has become embarrassingly tired, a former hockey player with the worst argument for "natural immunity" and a CNBC host who has clearly never worked in retail.
Friday
Neil deGrasse Tyson
The character: Neil deGrasse Tyson, science communicator, director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space, Christmas killjoy.
The plot: On Christmas Eve, deGrasse Tyson sent out a series of tweets fact-checking the Christmas magic of Santa Claus.
In one tweet, he observed that the North Pole was located in the ocean, so Santa's workshop could only exist above a floating ice sheet. "Images that portray Santa's workshop with pine trees and snow-capped hills on the horizon are geographically underinformed."
He also said that if people left carrots, celery and hot tea for Santa in lieu of milk and cookies, the jolly elf would be "much, much thinner."
In subsequent tweets, deGrasse Tyson continued to up the ante, pointing out that the velocity required for Santa to delivery toys would vaporize both his reindeer and sleigh.
"To deliver gifts to all the world's Christians in one night, Santa must travel at hypersonic speeds through Earth's lower atmosphere, vaporizing his reindeer and sleigh," he wrote. "I'm just sayin."
He followed it up with yet another tweet, fact-checking the popular depiction of Santa's reindeer with antlers, saying Santa didn't "know Zoology."
"Both male & female Reindeer grow antlers. But all male Reindeer lose their antlers in the late fall, well-before Christmas."
"So Santa's reindeer, which all sport antlers, are therefore all female, which means Rudolf has been misgendered."
The repercussion: deGrasse Tyson's series of Yuletide buzzkill tweets drew the ire of the internet, which did not appreciate the astrophysicist nitpicking the scientific accuracy of Santa Claus's magic on Christmas Eve, with Brien Rea dubbing the astrophysicist "Neil deGrinch Tyson."
But the coup de grâce came from former NASA astronaut Jose Hernandez, who informed deGrasse Tyson, "There is a time to [be] a scientist and a time be a regular person. Christmas is a time to be a regular person Neil."
Sunday
Michael James Schneider AKA That Balloon Guy From Instagram
The character: Michael James Schneider, Portland-based artist known for social media posts using letter-shaped balloons, enthusiastic proponent of single-use plastic.
The plot: On Sunday, Schneider tweeted that in the new year he wanted to manifest a quote from internet personality Stephen Szczerba, who said, "All I want is the love of a healthy relationship and the sex of a toxic one."
The repercussion: Schneider's latest art creation appeared to go over like a, uh, lead balloon with the internet, which felt his schtick was really something that 2022 didn't need.
Monday
Beau Bennett
The character: Beau Bennett, former professional hockey player for the New Jersey Devils, guy who had COVID nine times.
The plot: Amid the surge of COVID-19 cases in the United States with the Omicron variant evading the protection of vaccines, Bennett decided to ask, since vaccines still allowed you to spread the virus, whether people who "already had it" could "just sign a waiver saying we won't take up a hospital bed for anything COVID related" — adding that he had been infected nine times.
The repercussion: Bennett's tweet boasting about getting COVID nine times but claiming that "natural immunity" still worked got buried under an avalanche of quote-tweets with numerous people roasting the former hockey player by quipping that he should have stopped tweeting after his first eight words.
Wednesday
Jim Cramer
The character: Jim Cramer, former hedge fund manager, host of CNBC's "Mad Money," Jon Stewart maul victim.
The plot: On Wednesday, Cramer tweeted out a photograph of empty store shelves at a Dollar General and captioned it "suboptimal," apparently attributing it to the United States's supply-chain shortages.
The repercussion: Cramer's snarky tweet went viral, but not in the way he had intended, as people pointed out to him that the empty shelves were actually the beginning part of seasonal restock, marking the typical annual transition from Christmas to Valentine's Day merchandise.
Sharp-eyed netizens even zoomed in on the shelves to observe they were clearly labeled for Valentine's Day.
Read the previous edition of our One Main Character column, which included Ben Shapiro's sister attempting to shame Madonna and ended up teaching us all way too much about Nancy Reagan, and more.
Did we miss a main character from this week? Please send tips to [email protected].
