24 Hours Online with Caleb Hearon!
The Tuesday edition of the Goods newsletter is all about internet culture, brought to you by senior reporter Rebecca Jennings. The Tuesday edition of the Goods newsletter is all about internet culture, brought to you by senior reporter Rebecca Jennings. 𪵠24 hours online with Caleb Hearon â Caleb Hearonâs first time going mega-viral on Twitter was near the end of 2019. He made a [now-legendary POV video]( in which he pretended to agree with a friend who was venting to him about a situation in which they were clearly in the wrong. Heâs been goofing around on the platform since 2010, back in the era of âAshton Kutcher going on the Ellen show and talking about his âtweeps,ââ as he describes it. In those days, Hearon was a high schooler in rural Missouri working for what he calls a âfamily valuesâ organization for teens. (âI had so much fun tweeting stuff like, âwe need gun control now!â and immediately getting in trouble,â he says.) Then, in college, he became the kind of Twitter micro-celebrity around campus who drunk sorority girls would ask to follow them back at parties. Now 27, heâs living in LA and working as a comedian and TV writer, but still regularly goes viral on Twitter. During his [24 Hours Online](, Hearon ignores emails from Nancy Pelosi and JC Penney, mutes all his group chats, and considers buying a mixed-use building in Seattle on a late night Zillow binge. Here he is, in his own words: 8:30 am I wake up and immediately delete like, 20 emails from brands that want me to buy stuff. Theyâre literally all from the fat guy fashion places that have sunk their hooks in me because thereâs no good fashion for fat men: JC Penney, DXL, KingSize, and the non-cool shit from Carhartt. The emails are like, âGet your husky menâs clothes for cleaning out the gutter in your Saturday dad jeans!â and Iâm like, âDog, get me out of here.â And then of course, itâs Nancy Pelosi being like, âI did not want to send this email, Caleb. President Jimmy Carter needs you to pitch in for the North Carolina Senate,â and Iâm like, âI thought this bitch was dead!â I usually check Instagram first in the mornings because more often than not, I have some deranged Close Friends content to catch up on. I look for the little green VIP circles first then if Iâm bored or have time to kill Iâll watch general admission stories. My favorite Close Friends stories are when itâs a B-list celebrity being like, âHad a beautiful morning. Walked to the park and saw a dog I thought was cute. Love you guys, have a good one!â One of the first things I stop to actually read is from the account [@Swipes4Daddy](, one of my favorites. She swipes on much older men and then they flirt with her and itâs never not disgusting or insane. Itâs hot girl heterosexual culture, which is something that Iâm outside of. I have a meeting at 10, so I get on the Starbucks app and order a venti iced caramel latte with blonde espresso. Iâm not one of the advanced cool girls who likes black cold brew from a local coffee shop; I really love Starbucks. I hate to give them clout, but when I was broke in Chicago and needed somewhere to write for hours on end, Starbucks was perfect because you didnât feel bad taking over a table. 9:45 am Last night I tweeted something that accidentally became a viral prompt where gay men are quoting with what woman they would most like to die for. Doing a prompt tweet is one of the most embarrassing things you can ever do in your life. I read the replies to see how many people said Julia Roberts (my pick). You wouldnât believe the actresses who have stans, women whoâve been in two movies in the past 25 years. [( The [guy who splits logs on TikTok]( is getting attention again because it makes people feral I guess? I donât get it. Since heâs become big he has this air about him where heâll chop the wood and give a little chuckle and smirk or lick his lips. Iâm like, bitch, this is gross now. Then I see this bizarre little video of Dr. Oz, who is of course running for Senate and needs to be stopped; heâs in a grocery store going, âYou canât even buy groceries anymore because of Joe Biden!â Any time rich people cosplay as âeveryday Americansâ it cracks me up. I love watching rich people imagine the struggles of poor people. I reply to some texts. I put all my group chats on mute a few weeks ago, and now Iâm the most at peace any person has ever been. I get irrationally angry when Iâm doing something and then I get three texts in a row. 11 am I go on TikTok to post a Story, which they have now. As somebody who has to promote my live shows constantly, Stories and Fleets (RIP) are the best way to do it. It helps those of us who donât do sponsored content; Iâm more interested in selling tickets, writing scripts, and being in TV shows. But thereâs a lot more money on the spon-con side. 2 pm Iâm pitching a TV show this week, so I log on to a Zoom meeting with my co-creator, our showrunner, two producers, and some execs from a streaming network. Itâs a live-action, queer TV show based in Kansas City. (I think I can say all of that?) 3 to 8pm I have a long break in the middle of the day, so I drive me and a friend around in my Jeep to go get sushi. We listen to "All I Ever Wanted" by Mase radio on Spotify. I also rediscover Chingyâs âRight Thurr.â Itâs great, real windows-down-on-a-nice-day music. 10 pm Emails are the bane of my existence. I canât fucking believe we still do this. Right before bed, I end up doing like, 20 of them because I put them off all day. When youâre a comedian you have a million little jobs, and for every little job you have seven fucking pages of paperwork. It makes me want to scream. I am a phone-in-bed person, but my big bedtime rule about media is I donât watch TV in bed. Iâm also not a big TikTok person; I donât go down the five-hour TikTok holes like a lot of people do. Instead Iâll look up property that I am not buying. Iâll be like, âhouses in Kansas city under $500,000 with this many bedrooms.â Or Iâll look up mixed-use buildings. Maybe I want to open a coffee shop in Seattle! Itâs nice to dream about. What if tomorrow I had to rip up the floorboards in an old building I just bought? What if I was doing something other than what I have to do? Something I talk about a lot is how the internet makes mediocre people feel great and makes great people feel mediocre. It causes introspection for people who probably donât need more introspection, and it causes delusions of grandeur for people who donât need to feel better about themselves. Itâs a very bizarre place to put worth into, and having a big following only makes it weirder. You have a mix of people telling you youâre a genius because you did a 20-second video in your car â which is not genius, by the way, ever. And then youâll have people telling you youâre the ugliest person who ever lived and that you should die. And itâs like, well, one day I will. The internet is a very strange place, and Iâll probably be on it forever. Total screen time: 9 hours [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( Clickbait ð - The [Twitter bots]( who helped create the cult of Elon Musk.
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