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.
Here’s the Trending team’s main character of the week: It’s the Dollar Tree customer who realized that the iconic Jiffy cornbread mix had a .75 cent sticker on the box but was retailing for $1.25.
In uncertain economic times, the microaggression struck a nerve with readers and it became the No. 1 most-read story of the week here at the Dot.
“Now I know damn well people aren’t coming in here to buy this with a .75 cent sticker on it, and paying a buck 25 for it,” she says. “Ain’t no way, right? Ain’t nobody that crazy.”
The customer and TikTok creator continues: “You can go where I’m at, right out the door, and walk two hundred yards into Walmart. And get it for 79 cents. Who, who’s doing that? Who’s buying that with a 75-cent price tag on the box?”
Lots of folks. In fact, per Business Insider, items at the iconic budget retailer are going for as much as $7.
Why this story struck a nerve with readers
With a presidential election looming, and criticism of public policies on everything from abortion to immigration to the economy at a boiling point, the success of this story in terms of pageviews is clear.
But I almost missed it.
I want to call attention to our internal editorial process. In the late afternoons, the Trending editors meet and discuss the social media links and headlines that we’ve written. We read each other’s work. We offer notes on framing. We make all story assignments for the following day around 4pm ET.
And when this price discrepancy story came up, I thought it was too niche for anyone to care.
Laiken (morning editor) found it. Eilish (associate managing editor) ranked it high as one of her must-hits for Friday during our pitch call on Thursday. I pushed back. I was like this seems like a reach. What am I missing? And then Eilish goes no I get it I think people will care a lot, actually. I was like cool. Jack (contributing reporter i.e. he’s a freelancer) wrote it. And then Gisselle (weekend editor) published the story on Friday. It’ll make us about $30,000 in programmatic advertising via its web traffic, by itself, when it’s all said and done.
That’s the job in a modern, digital newsroom. Find the story first. Make sure the story is good. Go fast. Get the story right. You make your own luck that way.
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