Hello fellow citizens of the internet! Andrew here. Welcome to today’s edition of web_crawlr.
Our top stories today are about: Conspiracy theorists believing that President Joe Biden was secretly the man accused of assassinating JFK, a shopper’s viral warning about MLMs recruiting people in stores, ousted Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) attending Trump’s victory party in New Hampshire, and a Taco Bell worker sharing what the least-ordered menu item is.
After that, our Senior Politics and Technology Editor David has a “Deplatformed” column for you.
See you tomorrow!
⚡ Today’s top stories
🔍 CONSPIRACY
Was Joe Biden secretly Lee Harvey Oswald? New QAnon theory posits JFK’s killer is in the Oval Office
Conspiracy theorists are suddenly convinced that Lee Harvey Oswald, the man accused of assassinating President John F. Kennedy in 1963, was actually Joe Biden.
👀 WTF
‘They can keep you talking’: Shopper warns MLMs are recruiting you in-store. Here’s what to watch out for
A TikToker recently uploaded a viral clip that’s accrued over 781,000 views in which she delineates how, on several occasions, she’s been approached by multi-level marketing employees while shopping in “discount stores.”
🗳️ POLITICS
George Santos crashes Trump New Hampshire victory party—boldly announces he won’t serve as VP
Ousted Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) attended former President Donald Trump’s victory party in New Hampshire, prompting jokes about a future role for him in a potential Trump administration.
🌮 VIRAL
‘Most of us at Taco Bell forget it exists’: Taco Bell worker shares what the least-ordered menu item is
A popular Taco Bell worker on TikTok spilled the beans about which menu item is the least popular among customers.
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🚉 Deplatformed
By David Covucci
Politics & Technology Editor
Deplatformed: Google knows what’s coming next
Deplatformed is a weekly column that looks into the nether reaches of the internet—outside the big few that everyone already covers—to tell you the political discourse online. It runs on Thursdays 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.
✈️ Alaska Airlines isn’t doing so great this month. First, the airline had a door fly off mid-flight (terrifying), and now it’s apparently messing up the rescheduled flights of the people who are still flying with them.
🚗 An auto sales worker shared what the number one item folks tend to leave behind in their cars is, and it makes total sense.
🍴 In a compelling TikTok video, viewed over 1.5 million times, one person shares a cautionary tale about a birthday group dinner gone awry.
💇♂️ In a viral TikTok video, viewed by over 970,000 people, one user shares an unsettling experience at a barber shop, which left him feeling gaslit and betrayed by his longtime barber.
🛒 Gig workers are getting sick of people treating them poorly and not tipping well on top of that. This Instacart driver directly called out a customer, saying gig workers aren’t servants.
🧾 A customer expressed their frustration on Reddit over an 18% gratuity being added to their restaurant tab, emphatically opting out of tipping their server.
💵 A woman trying to sort out a tax bill from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) dating back to 2019 is furious that she’s received notice of an interest charge five years later.
⚰️ From the Daily Dot archive: Here are the real-life stakes of faking your death online.
📝 Question of the Day
Everyone’s got opinions, and we want to know yours. Just click a button below to answer the question, and tomorrow we will let you know how fellow web crawlers like you answered.
HAVE YOU EVER EATEN AT A WAFFLE HOUSE?
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👋 Before you go
Some people prefer a firm mattress, but we’re not sure that anyone would be excited to sleep on a mattress so firm that it’s frozen solid.
That’s what this woman has to deal with amidst the discomfort of a snowstorm. She can’t even lay in bed and get under the covers to warm herself up.
In a viral TikTok, Castle (@castleeeeeeeee) reveals that her Tempur-Pedic mattress, known for being comfortable and contouring to your body, froze during a snowstorm.
“Did you guys know that that Tempur Pedic mattresses freeze? It’s fro—my bed is frozen. My bed, where I usually sleep, yeah, that’s frozen,” Castle says in the clip.
And you don’t have to take her word for it, in the video Castle pounds on the bed with her fist and it makes the kind of thudding sound you’d expect when you hit a solid item.
