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 Trending team’s main character of the week? It’s the plumber of 32 years who made a recommendation that went viral. Don’t buy this particular water heater at Home Depot, he said.
It’s the most-read story at the Daily Dot this week. This is both surprising and predictable.
On the one hand, we know that our readers care about Home Depot. It’s an enormous brand that is distinctly American, projecting values and peddling goods that affect most folks who live in this country. As a general rule, Home Depot content is always a must-cover for us whenever we find an original TikTok about drama at Home Depot.
And yeah, we did not reveal in the headline of the story that the product in question was a water heater. Every good headline in the history of journalism since the dawn of the printing press is clickbait, after all.
The headline should always spark a curiosity gap that the reader must fill in by reading more of the subsequent article. Where news publishers fail readers is overpromising on the headline itself, and misdirecting readers to a flat story that doesn’t deliver on its promise. (See: Every Daily Mail and New York Post story about asteroids headed to Earth. You click but then feel preyed upon and empty inside.)
It’s the economy, stupid
Clever headline writing notwithstanding, why did the story resonate with our readers? Most of its traffic came from Google Discover, which is an algorithm that serves news articles to Android phones.
Who has Android phones? Exactly! The dude in your life who ruins group chats with green bubbles.
The tech-minded contrarian who doesn’t want to be a slave to the iPhone industrial complex. The bored dad who works as a product manager and walks the kids to school because his job is remote.
This person may not care about being handy or tools or water heaters. But as a sad man raised on toxic masculinity, he cares about coming across like he knows what he’s doing when presented with a carburetor.
I think the story also has resonance because it’s an expert opinion that stands out on the internet relative to positive reviews. As our reporting revealed, this is a 5-star product on the Home Depot website. But in recent years, the Better Business Bureau reviews have been more mixed.
The issue with this water heater, according to reviewers, is it doesn’t keep the water hot for long enough and compromises homeowners’ ability to take hot showers. One review said it stopped doing its job after a few years. Water heaters should last a decade.
It’s enough to make me spot-check the brand on mine at home.
A good news story makes you do that.
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