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Chapter 1: What does it mean to be the main character of the internet?
taylor do you ever think about bean dad oh my god yes now i do i forgot about that haven't heard that name in years what was your sort of final take on bean dad when it all kicked off do you remember i can't remember why he was canceled it wasn't for putting the fake shrimp in his cereal was it we'll get to it
Bean Dad, Justine Sacco, that woman who had fun sitting in the backyard with her husband once on Twitter. These are people we would call the main characters of the Internet. Everyone wants to know what their deal is. Everyone gets really mad about it. Their whole lives typically get ruined.
Today, we're going to be talking about how that keeps happening and why it's a little different now than it used to be. This is Panic World, a show about how the internet warps our minds, our culture, and eventually reality. With me is my personal bean dad, Grant Irving, my producer, and our fantastic guest returning to the show today is Taylor Lorenz. Taylor, how are you?
Good, good. So psyched to be here.
You've been the main character of the internet a few times, I feel like.
Once or twice.
What does that feel like when it's happening?
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Chapter 2: How has the perception of viral fame changed over the years?
I have dabbled in that world myself, but I feel like you have a bit more experience than I do when the internet comes calling.
yeah i think it's overwhelming at first but i i think it's sort of changed over time too kind of like what it means to be the main character i don't care about it anymore now i'm like let's bring it on you know who cares yeah but it used to be traumatizing the first few times it happened
I feel like a lot of the panic around it when it would happen was like society hadn't really caught up to how silly a lot of this stuff is. So like the first time it ever happened to me, I had a boss say they were going to fire me over it.
but it was because my family had been doxxed by 4chan and my editor basically didn't like the fact that we were getting that attention and was like, I'll fire you if you tweet about this or if you say anything about it. And like now that seems ridiculous, but this was 2012 probably. What'd you do to make 4chan mad? I wrote about a fake campaign they put together called Cutting for Bieber.
Oh yeah, I wrote about that.
They were pretending to be teenage girls who were self-harming because Justin Bieber was photographed smoking weed. That's pretty funny. Nowadays, I feel like if you become the main character of the internet, it probably stays more on the internet than it used to also, I would say.
You know, it's so funny. I get calls because I'm like a very well-known woman that's dealt with harassment online. Anytime someone's like in the midst of, you know, some sort of horrific campaign, I feel like I get a phone call.
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Chapter 3: What are the consequences of being doxxed or swatted today?
And I was talking to this one woman in media also the other day. And she's like, they're tweeting out my address. They're putting this. And I was like, girl, they're not going to do a thing. Trust me. They're not going to do a thing. Like people don't even swat anyone anymore. You know, they're not going to... Nothing happens. Like...
they don't even send a pizza you know so i think there was this moment maybe in the 2010s where like the worst thing that could happen is you get swatted and let me tell you somebody that's had my family swatted the first time my parents were like what is going on and it's like you know somewhat traumatic i guess but then after that they're like okay yeah you tell the police department now there's articles about it no one gives a
Oh, they sent the police to your house. And it's horrible. Like somebody can, you know, people have been shot and died. But I just think there's so much awareness of it now. And because it's a federal crime, people don't do it anymore.
Chapter 4: How do current internet dynamics affect women disproportionately?
So that was always like the one thing that they had that was scary, right? Like, you know, for instance, if you got doxxed and the 4chan people were coming at you, like swatting was this like one thing that they had. They don't really have that anymore. So now it's just like... What are you going to do?
Yeah.
You're going to fly to LA and what? Yell at me? No, you're not. You don't leave your house.
I remember in 2019, someone tried to like call in a bomb threat to my apartment. I guess they were going to like call the police and say that there was like a bomb there or something.
Yeah.
But they got the wrong address and they did it to like a French restaurant down the street. I've always felt very bad about that.
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Chapter 5: What role does coordinated harassment play in online culture?
Did you tell them? the french restaurant yeah no like give them extra business no the pandemic had started and i think so this was in 2020 and i think i figured like no one was there because like because of lockdown so i was like yeah that's fine uh like sure the thing is people also understand the concept of prank phone calls yes
And I think like, I mean, I've had them try to do things like this to me before or like call the employee. And people are like, this is a prank call.
Right.
You know, like show me some evidence that you're serious or get out of here.
Yeah, I think the fact that these sort of tactics have bubbled their way all the way up to like the highest levels of government and this behavior means that like everyone kind of writes it off as being silly and wacky.
Like, I mean, and I don't want to like, you know, diminish this sort of thing when it happens to the average person, which is sort of what we're talking about today, the main character effect, which I want to get to this in just a second. But like... Yeah, the whole world has sort of gotten used to it to a degree.
But to start properly, can you define what you sort of think of it meaning when you say, like, someone has become today's main character?
To me, when we talk about like the main character of the internet one day or of a platform even, it's kind of like the person that discourse is centralized on. It's the person that everyone is talking about, that everything that day kind of has to be related to, the person everybody's joking about.
It's just kind of like the central figure of, you know, in the discussion taking place on XYZ platform.
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Chapter 6: How do memes and viral moments shape public perception?
I have to credit Maple Cocaine, the Twitter user in 2019 who coined the phrase in a post that reads, each day on Twitter, there's one main character. The goal is to never be it. But I want to start in reverse chronological order today, actually. And I want to talk about a woman who has been the main character of the Internet several times, but most recently in March, Chapel Roan.
Are you familiar with Miss Chapel Roan?
Yes, I am.
And so I am, of course, talking about the incident in Brazil where on March 21st, 2026, Brazilian soccer player Jorginho Frello makes an angry Instagram story about Chaperone saying that her security guard intimidated his stepdaughter at a concert in Sao Paulo. And from Cosmo at the time, Frollo's post reads, during breakfast, the artists walked past their table.
My daughter, like any child, recognized her, got excited and just wanted to make sure it was really her. And the worst part is she didn't even approach her. She simply walked past the singer's table, looked to confirm it was her, smiled and went back to sit with her mom. She didn't say anything, didn't ask for anything. And then the security guard came over and was very aggressive and
Uh, and then basically Chaperone had to sort of say like, um, I don't know what you're talking about. Uh, and I guess like the reason I wanted to start here was why do you think Chaperone is so often sort of dragged into these like multi-week scandals?
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of celebrity culture on social media?
I think we need to distinguish some nuance here because while anybody can theoretically become a main character, we also have coordinated harassment, smear campaigns against women.
100%.
And I think making a woman a main character is a way to enact those smear campaigns. That's why I've been the main character so much. It's often because some bad faith actor is intent on smearing me for an article I wrote or something I did or whatever. They don't like me for whatever reason. Tucker Carlson, who knows?
So I think with Chapel Roan, like she triggers a decent amount of people who very frequently manufacture main characters. And that is the right wing Internet and the like centrist liberal Internet. Both of those like factions online, I feel like are main character drivers. And she's a lesbian woman. Right. And she's also sorry, a third group that often manufactures main characters are like.
I don't know if it's like Stan accounts, but like this like hyper online kind of like groups of community, like hyper online groups of young people, I guess you could say that really like to participate in discourse.
Yeah, I think that's actually the least talked about dimension to this, which is that like it is...
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Chapter 8: How do economic factors influence online behavior and trolling?
It is not just that there are fans of pop stars or actors or whatever. There are also anti fans or people who believe that like their fandom has to come at the expense of someone they deem like a rival. So like if an Olivia Rodrigo stan sees that Chaperone is being called out by a Brazilian soccer player, they're going to jump on it because they see it as a victory for the Olivia Rodrigo fandom.
This is sort of the dynamics that are tearing apart the fandom for the show The Pit right now. Because all the different actors have different fans and they believe that their screen time is based on whether or not that person's a good person in real life or whatever.
Wait, it's so crazy you bring that up because I had to mute the pit on Twitter. Like, I felt like crazy. Speaking of sort of anti-fandom, I see this. I do think that Chapel Roan also, not only is she's a pop star, but she's a political pop star. And she very famously came out in support of, you know, Palestine.
She said that she wouldn't necessarily endorse Kamala Harris, even though she eventually voted for her. So you have blue MAGA people.
Oh, yeah.
and the right and let me tell you as somebody that like you know that engages with those people a lot like they are also hype they are just as online as like a sabrina carpenter stan account and so you have i just think like all these groups kind of poised to jump you know when there's anything that's the matter you know that comes out that's seemingly negative about her do you think chapel becoming a main character today is different than like the history of the main character
I put chapel in the realm of the like Blake Lively, Amber Heard, Meghan Markle, like kind of like burn the witch type. Yes. Campaigns. It's like celebrities are getting roped up into these like internet campaigns.
I kind of think of it as like. They have figured out how to weaponize what happens to normal people to celebrities.
I think there's two directions where it's like... A random woman is now being held to the same media standards as someone like Chopperone if they go viral. Or even if someone just finds their video and makes it go viral. But then also...
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