Hello fellow web crawlers! Andrew here. Welcome to today’s edition of web_crawlr.
Happy Friday! Our top stories today are about: A Chic-fil-A customer finding something unusual in their chicken sandwich, why a red portrait of King Charles is sparking Satanism conspiracies, why people are blocking celebrities on social media, and how one Walmart shopper is warning others to check their receipts after she was randomly charged for “nothing.”
After that, the trending team shares with you their pick for “Main Character of the Week.”
Also: It’s Friday, which means it is time for our weekly news quiz! Just scroll down below to answer the question. If you guess correctly, you’ll be entered to win a “Take Me Out To The Blog Game” shirt.
See you tomorrow!
— A.W.
⚡ Today in internet culture
🤢 WTF
‘That’s a whole choking hazard’: Chick-fil-A customer finds something unusual in chicken sandwich
This Chick-fil-A customer found something truly disturbing in her chicken sandwich. Viewers are hoping she gets a fat check because of it.
👹 CONSPIRACY
‘Hidden in plain sight’: King Charles’ extremely red official portrait sparks Satanism conspiracies
A very red portrait of King Charles is being mocked on social media. But in some corners of the internet, the discourse is not limited to the aesthetics of the painting itself—but the meaning behind the use of all that red.
⛔ POP CULTURE
Block2024: Why are people blocking celebrities on social media?
Some are calling the trend the “digital guillotine.”
🛒 WAIT… WHAT?
‘Walmart is trying to steal from us’: Shopper slams Walmart after discovering $46 charge for ‘nothing’ on receipt
A Walmart shopper is urging customers to check their receipts. She says she was slapped with a random $46.27 charge for “nothing.”
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THE CEO OF WHICH DATING APP RECENTLY FACED A TON OF BACKLASH OVER THEIR PREDICTION ABOUT AI DATING?
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👑 Main Character of the Week
By Ramon Ramirez
Managing Editor
Main Character of the Week: Teacher who let students braid his hair and paint his nails
Main Character of the Week is a weekly column that tells you the most prominent “main character” online (good or bad). It runs on Fridays 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 job applicant was taken aback by a personality survey that she had to fill out just to get a summer job at Olive Garden.
🏠 This renter looking for a new apartment says she found one she wanted to sign for immediately, but after touring the “luxury” apartment she saw listed, she realized she’d better not.
💅 Leaving the nail salon unsatisfied sucks, but one viral video shows that sometimes the customer might be the issue and not the salon.
🧍♂️ How tall is Elon Musk?
🥤 This McDonald’s expert weighed in on the news that McDonald’s will be phasing out drink stations inside of its restaurants—in part to clamp down on those who want free refills on sodas.
🚘 A man’s plan to get a job at AutoZone so he could be around other men considerably backfired as a recent TikTok video shows him as the lone male employee among a handful of women.
👶 From the Daily Dot archive: The many lives of the Dancing Baby, cyberspace’s first cringe meme.
👋 Before you go
Noodle enthusiasts keeping up with the latest viral Buldak noodle trend might cut back on their noodle consumption after a woman on TikTok said eating too much Buldak ramen sent her to the emergency room.
Lucy (@lucymourad) uploaded a quick video of herself from her bed in the hospital with the caption, “RIP to buldak, I’ll miss you but my kidneys won’t.”
In the six-second video, the TikToker quickly pans the camera around the room before pointing it at herself.
“POV all the Buldak noodles you ate did indeed send you to the ER,” reads the text overlay on the video.
The video received 1.5 million views, and prompted a number of questions from concerned fans of the packaged ramen noodles.
