Hello fellow citizens of the internet! Andrew here. Welcome to today’s edition of web_crawlr.
Our top stories today are about: Sports fans in Texas wanting Sen. Ted Cruz to be banned from games because of his “absolutely real” curse of attending games where the teams lose, a manger who isn’t finding sympathy online after a worker busted her car windshield after they were fired, a woman’s viral PSA about drinking too many vodka Red Bulls, and how an account providing real-time alerts about earthquakes and tsunamis was temporarily unable to post due to policies on Elon Musk’s X.
After that, our Senior Politics and Technology Editor David has a “Deplatformed” column for you.
See you tomorrow!
— A.W.
⚡ Today’s top stories
🏈 POLITICS
‘Curse is absolutely real’: Texas sports fans want Ted Cruz banned from games after UT playoff defeat adds to slew of brutal losses he’s attended
It’s a running online joke that seemingly has the data to back its point: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is bad luck for Texas sports teams.
🚗 VIRAL
‘You deserved it’: Manager says worker busted her car windshield after he got fired. Viewers aren’t sympathetic
A restaurant manager shared an image of her car with its windows and back windshield shattered, revealing that an angry employee allegedly vandalized her vehicle after getting fired.
🥤 WTF
Woman issues PSA after vodka Red Bulls land her in the hospital
A content creator recently went viral after warning viewers against drinking too many vodka Red Bulls, which landed her in the hospital with a heart attack.
💻 TECH
Elon Musk’s X blocked natural disaster warning, information account for posting too much during Japan earthquake
An account providing real-time alerts on earthquakes, tsunamis, and typhoons in Japan was temporarily unable to post due to policies on Elon Musk’s X.
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🚉 Deplatformed
By David Covucci
Politics & Technology Editor
Deplatformed: Vaccine-induced plane crashes
Deplatformed is a weekly column that looks into the nether reaches of the internet—outside the big few that everyone already covers—to tell you the political discourse online. It runs on Thursdays in the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter. If you want to get this column a day before we publish it, subscribe to web_crawlr, where you’ll get the daily scoop of internet culture delivered straight to your inbox.
🕸️ Crawling the web
Here is what else is happening across the ‘net.
💳 A user on TikTok has gone viral after claiming that around 50 Target gift cards were purchased as part of a charity event—but when people went to actually use these gift cards, they were empty.
🤖 Here’s a look at the 8 biggest AI flops of 2023.
📦 An Amazon worker has gone to TikTok to express his frustration with customers ordering heavy items, particularly calling out those who purchase water and dog food.
☕ This coffee shop customer claims that when he purchased a coffee he was prompted to tip on a tablet but there wasn’t an option to select “no tip.”
💄 One person’s trash is another person’s treasure—or, as many people suspect, another person’s secret stash that someone discovered while dumpster diving at Ulta.
🍬 It might sound unusual, but TJ Maxx is a goldmine for unexpected food.
🛒 A mother out Christmas shopping for her kids said a Walmart employee racially profiled her. It happens every year, she said.
📜 From the Daily Dot archive: Here’s why Netflix action movies always suck.
📝 Question of the Day
Everyone’s got opinions, and we want to know yours. Just click a button below to answer the question, and tomorrow we will let you know how fellow web crawlers like you answered.
DO YOU PREFER TACO BELL OR CHIPOTLE?
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👋 Before you go
It’s a classic prank: the old fake lottery ticket. Designed to look real and dupe the recipient into thinking they just won a fat chunk of change, this joke gift is the perfect thing to hand someone if you have a wicked sense of humor and enjoy seeing instant joy drain from someone’s face.
And for a TikToker named Jay (@not.jayswift), this seems to be the case. In a viral TikTok that’s accrued over 361,000 views, Jay shared that he planned on having a very interesting Christmas with his family as he ordered the scratch-off tickets to dupe whoever played them into thinking that they’ve won big.
“I ordered fake lottery scratch offs where you win a million dollars for my family on Christmas. I’m not going to be able to breath. Omg,” he wrote in a text overlay of his video, which was capped off with laughing and crying emoji.
