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.
The internet is a stage, and someone unwillingly stumbles onto it weekly. This makes them the “main character” online. Sometimes their story is heartwarming, like the McDonald’s manager who recently got existential about whether her promotion was worth it. In any case, that main character energy flows through the news cycle and turbo-charges debate for several business days.
Here’s the Trending team’s main character of the week.
It’s the Jeep dealership worker who was so stoned he tried to sell a guy his own car. We don’t need to overthink this one.
“I’m realizing, just at the speed with which Graham is moving, that Graham is stoned,” TikTok creator Luke (@luke.is.alive_) said recently in a viral video. “He’s stoned. Hands down. He’s 22, 23 years old. Got a big old baggy suit that looks like it’s the only suit he’s ever owned in all of his life, and he is stoned.”
Graham, whom we never meet in the video and hopefully still has a job, didn’t stop there.
“He says, ‘You like this one?’” Luke says. “‘Should we get some pricing on this one?’ I said, yeah we should, we should get some pricing on this one, so what’s it go for? He says, ‘Let’s take the stock number and we can head on inside and see what it’s like.’ I said, ‘Graham. This is my car. You’re trying to sell me my car that I drove here in.’”
Viewers were charmed and couldn’t help but wonder if Graham was related to the owner. We reached out to Luke, but thus far it’s unclear where Graham’s saga concluded.
But I’m curious.
Is this a story that did well because of cars? Cars have become a big traffic topic for us in recent weeks. They are a massive, evergreen Google search term with vast interest groups all connected by this societal disruptor that’s become essential to most Americans’ daily lives. Car blogs always do well, and our TikTok coverage of cars is more universal because it isn’t just for hobbyists, it’s about tips and tricks to thrive under our Big Car chokehold.
But perhaps this is an even more relatable story about being stoned at work? I can barely tell the difference between an indica or an indica-sativa blend, and yet even I can relate to it thinking it’d be nice to rip the pen at my desk. With the perpetual decriminalization of marijuana, and outright legalization of it in all the good states, the stigma of smoking weed has lifted like a fog of dank kush clearing out of a Kia Soul. And in response, employees are more brazen than ever about checking out at work while being outright stoned themselves.
In a way, we’re all really rooting for Graham here—not Luke.
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