Twitter's Main Character

About

Twitter's Main Character refers to an axiom which states, "Each day on twitter there is one main character. The goal is to never be it." The axiom comes from a tweet by user @maplecocaine. Since it was posted in January of 2019, Twitter users have noticed how one person on the platform will often become the subject of a day's worth of negative tweets, usually due to an outlandishly bad take published either in a tweet or an article.

Origin

On January 2nd, 2019, Twitter user @maplecocaine^[1] tweeted, "Each day on twitter there is one main character. The goal is to never be it," gaining over 21,000 retweets and 94,000 likes.

Spread

Since the tweet was posted, it became widely referenced on Twitter whenever a person seemed to be the center of attention on the platform due to an article or tweet that was received poorly. For example, on August 27th, 2019, Twitter user @politicswolf^[2] referenced it while talking about Bret Stephens Bedbugs Joke Callout (shown below, left). On March 17th, 2019, user @mikearooonie^[3] referenced it talking about Shane Dawson's Cat Sexual Abuse Controversy (shown below, right).

By the following year, the phrase "Twitter's main character" became more common parlance, as people used the term without quoting the original tweet. For example, on September 16th, 2020, user @nixonrobocop^[4] opined that a man who was patting himself on the back for bringing back college football during the coronavirus pandemic was the main character of the day (shown below, left). On September 11th, 2020, New York Times opinion columnist Paul Krugman was cited as the day's "main character" by multiple users for opining that America post-9/11 was 'mostly calm.'. For example, Twitter user @leyawn^[5] posted sarcastic congratulations to Krugman for being the day's "main character," gaining over 450 retweets and 6,100 likes (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References