Weekly Internet Roundup: Airplane Baby Discourse, Money Grabbing CEOS, and a Graveyard of Twitter Blue Ticks

Good day, dear reader. Here we are to review yet again some of the events and conversations that dominated the internet this week. Like a lot of dumb viral occurrences, many of these news items dig deep down into peoples' superiority complexes and bring up some unpleasant, annoying, but occasionally funny things. Let's get into it.

I've Had It With These MFing Babies on This MFing Plane

Ah, cattle class air travel. Notoriously the most sophisticated and relaxing way to get from point A to point B. Anyone who's enjoyed this mode of transport at least once has had to put up with all the annoyances that come with it, and that often includes unwelcome noise. Nobody enjoys it when a baby spends the best part of a flight crying, probably least of all the parents. 

The last thing needed by those who are struggling with their kids on an airplane is somebody to get up in their face about it, but that's exactly what happened when one man had enough on a Southwest Airlines flight earlier this week. 

Loudly confronting the parents of a noisy baby in front of the whole plane, he ended up getting arrested for his outburst. To no-one's surprise, the viral video of the event kickstarted several days of debate on Twitter as to who was in the wrong. Personally, I try to extend grace to a small child reacting to a difficult environment and save the air rage for the entitled jerk who reclines their seat right into my face, but that's just me.

Andi Owen, Businesswoman of the Year 

Here at Memebase, we tend to feel that the overlap between ‘big boss’ and ‘human garbage’ can be unfortunately large. Still, it's rare we get to see an example that is quite as egregious as the one recently provided by Andi Owen, CEO of furniture company MillerKnoll. In a move that is almost impressive in its awfulness, she went on a viral rant to her employees that was all about money. Accusing her subordinates of living in ‘pity city’ after complaints about canceled bonuses, she failed to mention that she was pocketing an alleged $6.4 million extra. 

Following a well-deserved outcry, Owen has since given the inevitable apology statement and is probably waiting patiently for the PR nightmare to subside, so she can go back to denying her workers their benefits. She isn't going to live this down in a hurry, though.

RIP Journalist Status Symbols, 2009-2023

After a false start, Elon Musk has finally gone and pulled the plug on Twitter's legacy verification system. Being the memelord jokester that he is, this had to happen on 4/20, after the previous date of April Fool's Day didn't go ahead. Now, all that's left of those iconic little checkmarks are the accounts of people who thought it was a good idea to cough up for subscription service Twitter Blue — oh, and a handful of celebrities who Elon extended his benevolence towards by personally paying to keep them blue ticked. Stephen King and LeBron James, hope you enjoy being the chosen ones. Everyone else, welcome to the land of the proles.

Help, They're Trying to Make Eugenics Cool Again

I'm no anti-natalist, but I don't think it's a coincidence that those making a big deal about popping out kids for the good of humanity are usually massive dorks. I mean, look at all the fanfare around the seed spreading of our favorite billionaire Elon. It's hard to think that it could get any worse than doing IVF with one of your employees, but apparently there are even more insufferable babymakers out there.

Discourse was had and memes were created after UK newspaper The Telegraph published an article entitled ‘Meet the ‘Elite’ Couples Breeding to Save Mankind’. The piece spent a lot of time on Silicon Valley entrepreneur couple Simone and Malcolm Collins, who both wear Edna Mode glasses and have caused controversy with their conviction that their amazing genes are exactly what the world needs to save us from suffering and extinction.

Their marriage proposal took place through Reddit and DeviantArt a decade ago, which speaks volumes about what kind of elite babies they want to have. Anyway, the headline has become a copypasta that parodies the ridiculousness. They're not the kind of people you can imagine getting spit up on, I'll say that much. 

…And that's all we're going to touch on for now. Please, make like an insufferable middle manager and circle back this time next week to see our summary of what happens over the next few days. Bye bye!