Newsletter: Why a tree has the internet captivated

Internet culture is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here. You’ll get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.

Hello fellow web crawlers! Andrew here. Welcome to today’s edition of web_crawlr. 

Here’s the latest trending internet culture stories today: Why the internet is obsessed with a random tree, some of the best memes to come out of Sen. Cory Booker’s record-breaking speech in Congress, why old conspiracy theories are being resurfaced amid a new virus in Russia, and why people are having dinner with their cats. 

After that, the trending team shares with you their pick for “Main Character of the Week.” Also, don’t forget to check out our “Hot on the Dot” section to see the most popular story on the Daily Dot yesterday! 

P.S. — 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 might win a “Cache Me Outside” shirt!

See ya tomorrow! 

— A.W. 

Today in Internet Culture

INTERNET SUPERSTAR
The internet is obsessed with a random tree named Rodney with a 4.9-star rating

The hottest new tourist attraction is a four-and-a-half-year-old tree named Rodney.

➤READ MORE

VIRAL POLITICS
Cory Booker memes flood social media after Senate marathon—20 of the best

Cory Booker memes took the stand this week before and after he finished his record-breaking speech against the Trump administration.

➤READ MORE

CONSPIRACY
New Russian virus revives old Ukrainian biolabs conspiracy

A new respiratory virus is reportedly spreading through Russia, drawing unevidenced conspiracies from Russian state media and social media users that it is the work of a Ukrainian bioweapon.

➤READ MORE

 TRENDS
‘He loves it so much’: Woman eats with her cat because a viral video suggests ‘it means so much to them.’ It’s not just her

A woman posts a video that shows her eating dinner with her cat because a viral video suggested “it means so much to them.” Apparently, she’s not the only one who took this advice seriously.

➤READ MORE

We crawl the web so you don’t have to. Sign up to receive web_crawlr, a daily newsletter from the Daily Dot, in your inbox each day.

Take Our Weekly News Quiz!

Are you the most online reader of web_crawlr? Prove it by answering our question of the week! The answer can be found somewhere in one of our newsletters from this week. 

If you answer correctly, you’ll be entered to win our brand new “Cache Me Outside” shirt, and we’ll shout out five people who won the shirt! 

WHICH MUSICIAN WAS MOCKED ONLINE FOR HIS RIDICULOUS OUTFIT HE WORE AT THE WHITE HOUSE?

To answer questions like this in the future, sign up for web_crawlr here.

By Ramon Ramirez
Managing Editor

Main Character of the Week: The teenager who bought a Tesla and got buyer’s remorse

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.

Kids on TikTok are dropping increasingly heavy objects on their feet—here’s why it’s more than just a weird trend.

Is KitKat spelled with a hyphen? You’re not alone if you think so. But despite what you and many others may think, KitKat does not contain a hyphen.

This simple Olive Garden hack could get you two meals for the price of one. You just have to be a bit shameless about it.

A woman alleged that she bought a tin of Pillsbury biscuits that contained an unsavory addition: metal scraps.

From the Daily Dot archive: Distorted TikTok sounds hurt marginalized creators—and AI is making it worse.

Hot on the Dot

This was the most read story on the Daily Dot yesterday:

➤‘What are we doing?’: Olive Garden waitress serves food to table of young girls. Then she overhears them say this