Yapping and Yearning: How Online Were You in March?

The Congress Who Cried TikTok: If I had a nickel for every time the U.S. tried to ban TikTok, I’d just buy the app myself. But on March 13, the government came closer than ever before to forcing the app’s Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, to divest from the app or let it face a de facto ban in the United States. Despite the app introducing a pop-up call to action urging users to voice their disapproval of the bill, it passed in the House 352-65, meaning the app’s only hope is for the bill to fail in the Senate. Sure, let’s let the “Can you commit to ending finsta?� people determine the fate of 170 million social-media users.

Catherine Conspiracies: This month is going to require its own AP European History unit. From the botched Princess Catherine Mother’s Day Instagram post to the King Charles death hoax to the news that the princess, in fact, has been diagnosed with cancer — let’s just say it wasn’t the best timing for Meghan Markle’s new lifestyle brand.

.

Gatekeeping girlhood

On March 13, creator Dylan Mulvaney released her first single to celebrate two years since she began her transition. Despite there not being a can of Bud Light in sight, she still received backlash, with some users claiming it made a mockery of women. While the song reflects Mulvaney’s own experience coming into her femininity, detractors felt lines like “Monday, can’t get out of bed / Tuesday morning, pick up meds / Wednesday, retail therapy / ‘Cash or credit?’ I say yes� painted girlhood with a broad brush, which no female artist has ever done before — certainly not Cyndi Lauper, Beyoncé, Britney Spears, No Doubt, Hailee Steinfeld, Martina McBride, Shania Twain …

Why It’s a 2: Rampant transphobia means there’s not much Mulvaney can do at this point without it rocketing to national news. The music video received millions of views, and write-ups in the New York Post and Fox News. Lady Gaga even shared a photo with Mulvaney on International Women’s Day and came to her defense in the backlash — passing the baton from one queer-anthem writer to another. Slay.

.

Making Lemon-ade

Turns out Don Lemon’s punishment for the alleged pattern of misogyny that may have contributed to his declining CNN viewership wasn’t just getting fired — it was working with Elon Musk. After being ousted from the network in April 2023, Lemon says he entered into a “partnership� with Elon Musk to release his new project, The Don Lemon Show, on Twitter (now known as X). An interview with Musk himself was set as the show’s debut. However, on March 13, Lemon announced Musk had terminated the partnership in retaliation for his asking tough questions about alleged drug use and rampant antisemitism on Twitter. After some sparring back and forth online, the interview was later streamed in full on YouTube. I’m starting to think this guy might not be such a free-speech warrior after all …

Why It’s a 2: Nothing like an online tantrum to remind you that the most powerful and influential men in our country are, in fact, just men.

.

Beast mode

We’re one step closer to the plot of Squid Game being reality. The show was quite literally the inspiration behind a 2021 video from megapopular YouTuber Mr. Beast, in which 468 people competed for $468,000 by completing a re-creation of the show’s challenges. It received over 590 million views. On March 18, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that the creator is taking his talent for dystopian philanthropy to Amazon, where his new show, Beast Games, will have 1,000 contestants compete in undisclosed challenges for a $5 million cash prize — believed to be the biggest in reality-TV history, and yet, just .8 percent of what Mr. Beast reportedly makes each year.

Why It’s a 2: It’s important to show enthusiasm for Mr. Beast’s multimillion-dollar endeavors now to ensure mercy by the time he’s world dictator.

.

Ableist assumptions

On March 15, ahead of World Down Syndrome Day, the nonprofit CoorDown released an ad campaign that went viral across TikTok and Twitter. The tagline, “Assume That I Can,� challenged the misconceptions that prevent people with Down syndrome from socializing, exercising, and living to their fullest. “You assume I cannot drink a margarita,� actress Madison Tevlin (Champions) says in the video. “So you don’t serve me a margarita, so I don’t drink a margarita.� This is one of many ways the ad lists that people with Down syndrome are underestimated and prevented from taking advantage of opportunities they’re more than capable of doing, like living alone or learning Shakespeare. “Assume that I can,� the ad concludes. “So maybe I will.�

Why It’s a 2: The ad received a reported 30 million views on X and another 30 million on TikTok, landing Tevlin interviews with CTV, CNN, and Glamour, but more significantly, it seems to have actually changed minds. “While watching this ad I realized, I had many of these preconceived notions about this topic,� one commenter wrote on YouTube. “Took me decades and it opened my mind to learn about myself. This does not happen often, but after a couple of minutes of watching, yep, time for me to stop being ignorant.�

.

Dance bombs

It can be difficult for child stars to rebrand as adults, but no one is having a harder time than JoJo Siwa. For weeks now, the former Dance Moms star has been teasing a new song on TikTok. While her discography includes titles like “Bop!� and “Every Girl’s a Super Girl,� her upcoming single, “Karma,� out April 5, promises it’s “not made for children.� In a series of Instagram posts on March 11, Siwa warns of sexual themes, violence, and strong language. But as far as the internet’s concerned, the lady doth protest too much. The over-the-top visuals and the so far not-that-aggressive lyrics mean “Karma� is all but sure to overpromise and underdeliver — in adult content, that is, but at least not in memes.

Why It’s a 3: While JoJo Siwa boasts 45 million TikTok followers and has a ponytail that will forever be imprinted in 2000s kids’ psyches, she hasn’t quite found success as a celebrity for adults. It’s hard for people to take your song about being “a bad girl� seriously when you’re dancing to it in front of a car covered in pictures of your own sparkly face.

.

Once a Gleek …

Finally, a song we can all agree on. What the failed Universal Music Group TikTok deal took from us in Taylor Swift it gave to us in a Glee resurgence. The TV show’s songbook of covers now serve as an alternative to the popular songs that had been ripped from the platform. But Chris Colfer’s “Rose’s Turn,� from season one, episode 18, has transcended its Glee origins. It’s now the universal soundtrack for TikTok videos lamenting hard work that never paid off, from “coming out as bisexual just to fall in love with a man� and “when you lose 100 pounds naturally and then Ozempic.� I’ll just save you a click: That last one was from Josh Peck.

Why It’s a 3: Over 300,000 TikTok videos have been made using the viral sound, enough for it to reach Colfer himself: “I am confused. I am concerned. I am scared. I am a little aroused,� he shared at the Elton John AIDS Foundation Oscars viewing party on March 10. “I don’t know whether to blame the gays or the deep state, but I am now in constant fear for my life.�

.

Game off

Ten years after its namesake, GamerGate 2 is underway. That is to say, another harassment campaign fighting the good fight to Make Video Games Bigoted Again™. How else would you summarize a movement motivated by accusations that a consulting company is turning video games “woke� for infractions such as “having a Black character� and “not immediately killing the woman�? In exactly the style of internet harassment that hallmarked the initial movement, the Verge reports that aggrieved gamers are targeting the employees of Sweet Baby Inc., a development company they claim is “forcing� developers to make “woke� narrative changes, as well as any journalists and gamers that come to their defense. These attacks have been amplified by prominent X users like Libs of TikTok, Matt Walsh, Ian Miles Cheong, and Elon Musk, who also happen to make up the world’s worst blunt rotation.

Why It’s a 3: While thousands of gamers have gathered in a Discord to strategize this harassment, the Verge reports it’s more about “vibes� than enacting meaningful change. “I’m just here cause it’s fun, nothing’s gonna happen,� one user wrote. This doesn’t negate the severity of the harassment being levied at Sweet Baby employees, but does underline the meaninglessness of the entire endeavor.

.

Breakup backlash

At this point, if you’ve seen one influencer breakup announcement, you’ve seen them all, so it’s always refreshing when a couple forgoes the clichés and decides to be honest. In the case of Anjali Chakra and Sufi Malik, it meant throwing one of them under the bus. The pair, who had first gone viral in 2019 for their appearance in a photo shoot, announced on March 24 that they ended their engagement due to “infidelity committed by Sufi,� Chakra wrote. Over on Malik’s page, she was just as forthcoming: “I made an unrecognizable mistake of betrayal by cheating on her a few weeks before our wedding.� To be fair, if my partner of over five years cheated on me, I’d force them to self-flagellate on main, too.

Why It’s a 3: The sheer shock from Chakra and Malik’s fan base combined with the unique honesty of the posts gave this breakup mainstream traction, with outlets like E! News and the New York Times covering their decision to name the infidelity. At least the relationship started how it ended: with tons of opinions from the internet.

.

Girl, deconstructed

At the end of February, Bethany Beal — one-half of fundamentalist Christian YouTube channel Girl Defined — and her husband, Dav Beal, collaborated with fellow Christian YouTubers Paul and Morgan. In an episode of Paul and Morgan’s 24 Hours With series, viewers noticed Dav appeared to not be quite as gung ho about his faith as he used to be. Then, on March 5, Bethany and Dav released a video on their channel acknowledging that Dav is “deconstructing� his faith. In the hour-long video, the pair explained that Dav had spent the past few years grappling with and ultimately distancing himself from Christianity, but that they were very much still married. To be fair, “still married� would be, perhaps, the most honest Facebook relationship status for most couples.

Why It’s a 4: This mattered a lot to longtime followers of Girl Defined, despite its YouTube channel having only 158,000 subscribers. This is because the channel’s audience is made up of just as many skeptics as it is believers. The channel’s wild videos on purity and modesty culture have been dissected and critiqued across the internet by more mainstream content creators like Cody Ko and snarked on on Reddit. But what they lack in genuine numbers, they make up for in passion, which was necessary for enduring Bethany’s single years, her first kiss on her wedding day, and recent sudden pivot to sex content now that she’s married. Through it all, questions about Dav’s enthusiasm lingered, and this recent admission was music to the ears of FundieSnarkers everywhere.

.

Throwing stones in Glassdoor

A new Glassdoor policy, presumably written by a single power-mad member of HR, prohibits users from signing up anonymously. Instead, it will require identity verification and associate real names with accounts. The website, which for the past 17 years has been a place for employees to leave honest reviews of current and former employers, thrived because of the safety its anonymity provided. While this new update won’t display people’s names publicly, the threat of a bug or breach that could end up revealing this information was enough for users to ditch the site, requesting their data be erased to avoid ever being unmasked as the person who wrote “not enough microwaves� about their office in 2017 — to name a random, not at all based-on-true-events example.

Why It’s a 4: If you’ve previously left an anonymous review, Glassdoor can only get ahold of your name if you provide it by uploading your résumé. Even then, it would take a lot of what-ifs to come true for your name to ever make its way back to your employer. And if it does, I stand by my — or, I mean, whoever’s — microwave complaint loud and proud.

.

Hazel homeward bound

Writer and organizer Hannah Riley posted the tweet every pet owner dreads on March 17. Her dog, Hazel, was lost. In fact, Hazel wasn’t just lost but went missing from the custody of the Atlanta-area emergency vet taking care of her. She was, Riley says, let outside off-leash, in an area surrounded by highways, and not seen again. Riley began frantically getting the word out on social media, posting updates on Twitter and rallying users to spread the message. But they did more than that. Locals who came across Hazel’s story on social media joined in on the search, Riley tells Today, and helped piece together firsthand accounts to track her movements. The fervor around Hazel’s disappearance escalated, and local newspaper Decaturish covered the story — and had it not, Riley says, then Hazel’s rescuer wouldn’t have recognized her when she appeared at the door. After five days of agony, Hazel had been found, not just to Riley’s joy, but all of Twitter’s, too.

Why It’s a 4: This was the first good Twitter-specific thing to happen in two years. While the site no longer functions as a platform for productive discourse and instead threatens democracy as we know it, at least it can save dogs.

.

Coming home to roost

Yet another chapter of the early internet has come to a close. On March 6, Warner Bros. Discovery announced it would be shutting down Rooster Teeth, a digital production company that began in 2003 and is responsible for the second-longest-running web series of all time, Red vs. Blue. General manager Jordan Levin cited “fundamental shifts in consumer behavior� as the reason for the shuttering, according to Deadline. The company will begin winding down over the next few months as it explores options for its IP, which also includes RWBY and Gen:LOCK, while its podcast network continues to operate.

Why It’s a 4: While Rooster Teeth’s waning popularity was ultimately the reason for its demise, it was a pivotal pillar in building what would become the digital content industry, long before anyone knew in 20 years we’d be watching things on smaller and smaller screens. Justice for Funhaus.

.

Alphamania

Streaming isn’t dead, you’re just not on the right platforms. Case in point: ShortTV, which has the hottest professor-stepbrother-werewolf love tryst on the market. Released on the App Store six months ago, it found viral success on TikTok thanks to its bizarre ads for Forbidden Desires: Alpha’s Love. This isn’t to be confused with the other short-form-video Alpha series about werewolves on ReelShort — but also, it’s okay if you confuse them, because they all seem pretty much the same? And by that, I mean bad. But for TikTok and Twitter alike, the low production value, unhinged story line, and the energy that this could turn into porn at any moment made for insatiable hate-watching. Users have been begging for ways to watch beyond just the episodes on TikTok without paying for the app, to the point that the description of ShortTV’s TikTok account reads, “I can only share free 10EP here or else my boss will scold me LOL.� Sounds like the plot of the next Alpha series, TBH!

Why It’s a 5: You don’t know “down bad� until you’re pleading with an app nobody’s heard of for more free episodes of werewolf porn. Whatever it is, it’s working — at one point, ShortTV spiked to become the second-most-popular app on the App Store. (As of writing, it’s fallen back down to No. 140.)

.

Shrimp Jesus?

Shrimp Jesus. As 404 Media first reported on March 19, AI spam is taking over Facebook, and one example of this is a picture of Jesus on the cross, except his body is a bunch of shrimp. There are actually multiple images of a Crustacean Jesus, which went viral on Twitter after being posted by Facebook accounts called things like Love God &God Love You and Love Father &Mother Bless You. A scroll through these pages is genuinely unsettling, because they contain not just Shrimp Jesus, but Lobster Jesus, Seahorse Jesus, and Pepsi bottle Jesus. In the words of quite literally every single comment: amen.

Why It’s a 5: I hope it’s not ungodly of me to say that Shrimp Jesus needs to stay hidden beneath whatever rock he was found under.

.

In plain sight

Creator Sarah Joy had accumulated over 590,000 followers under the username ThatPlainGirl, where she posted on TikTok about her life as a Plain person, a term for Anabaptist Christian groups like the Mennonites and Amish. On March 28, however, she wiped all trace of her account after coming under fire for resurfaced photos and past social-media accounts that show her in modern dress. In a now-deleted video defending herself from the allegations, Joy said she only recently joined the community. However, screenshots of TikTok videos saved by eagle-eyed users show Joy previously claiming to have been involved since childhood. The mounting pile of kompromat, including the digital footprints of her family members, have been compiled in a dedicated Sarah Joy “snark� sub-Reddit — a series of words that make me want to give up all technology, too.

Why It’s a 5: There’s nothing the internet loves more than the Schadenfreude of catching someone in a lie, no matter how insignificant it will all feel in approximately one week.