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 a PSA, like a person warning others about getting a car loan from a specific bank, usually it’s a gaffe. 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 guy who took his Tesla Cybertruck through a car wash. Turns out the futuristic video game truck that looks built to ward off an invading army of humanoid spiders doesn’t do great with soap.
The Cybertruck has emerged as a certain kind of plaything for a certain kind of driver. In Austin, Texas—where the Daily Dot is based —I see about four every week driving in Central Austin.
Let’s describe said driver: They are affluent and support Elon Musk as a disruptive force for economic good; lean independent or libertarian but harbor sympathy for right-wing influencers who themselves champion Musk on X. They have Tungsten wedding bands and see their funky car as a top-tier status symbol.
I don’t have an opinion about Musk. He has brought down the price of lithium-ion batteries and made electric cars more accessible to humanity. He also seems eccentric to the degree that he views most people as disposable, and so the internet becomes a playground wherein he enjoys trolling and generally being a bully.
That’s an opinion, yes, but what I mean is I don’t know him and I don’t know enough about him to say whether or not he is a force for good or evil. Ten years ago, our tech writers at the Daily Dot were very sympathetic toward Musk. One told me that they viewed him as a Tony Stark-like eccentric: Billionaire, playboy, genius.
We reported on Musk’s ventures with optimism and took him at his word when he would describe space as a frontier he’d soon conquer. This changed as he became more contrarian on Twitter and bought the platform, caused chaos, and reportedly had someone make him a sandwich on video as he fired people.
Now when it comes to cars, Tesla drivers are singled out as being weird and rich by the general public because to own one is to support Musk. If you zoom out and really study the business leaders who run other car brands, however, you may not love their politics either.
So great, we all got a good laugh at Cybertruck’s kryptonite-like reaction to the car wash. Also the other viral guy whose touchscreen allegedly broke in the car wash. Ditto Katy Perry buying one. Ditto the system failures. Ditto the recall. Ditto the layoffs.
It won’t change the fact that the Cybertruck looks sweet as hell.
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