Weekly Internet Roundup: Ice Cream Dates, the Neopets Revival, and Terrible Husbands

Hello to the good, the bad, and the ugly. It's time for us to take a retrospective look at some of the things the internet threw at us this week. I'm not going to stall, so let's begin.

Sprinkle Sprinkle Culture and Its Consequences

Standards are never more important than when we're looking for someone to love, but to say our definition of the word varies is an understatement. In abstract, most of us would not have a problem with others demanding a certain level of effort and respect from those they date. However, this all goes out the window when somebody proposes going for ice cream.

This particular discourse cycle began when a screenshot was shared of a text exchange between a woman rejecting her prospective date after they suggested getting ice cream together. Reasoning that at 26, she required more effort put into a first date than a sweet treat, the text became the epicenter of an almighty Twitter debate about everything wrong with modern dating. Personally, I wouldn't want to be roped into a five course dinner with a stranger who turned out to be a complete weirdo, but that's just me!

Men 👎

The PR status of marriage feels like it has never been worse, and several viral stories have come along this week to reinforce the ongoing crisis. At the more innocuous end of the scale, the TikToker husband outrage pipeline was kept chugging along nicely by one woman who exposed how unhelpful her partner had been while she was giving birth. 

As if the discourse cycle around that wasn't enough, the internet also grappled with two truly shocking tales of marriages gone wrong. The first was an astonishing use of Twitter's Community Notes feature, adding context to a tweet where an American man boasted about inviting his Colombian wife on vacation without meeting her first. The note pointed out that he was eventually charged for her murder. 

Not long before this, a man with a place in internet history also faced the intense scrutiny of Twitter for his criminal behavior. The guy whose wedding inadvertently kickstarted The Dress phenomenon was charged with domestic abuse and attempted murder of his wife. 

OK, that's enough depressing relationship stories for a while now! Only news about bizarre celebrity recouplings from this point on, please. 

Neopians, Rejoice

It looks like we aren't over the hump of the ongoing Y2K trend just yet. Without a doubt, this is a revival that will probably go down better than the low rise jeans comeback. After IP address issues led to the site shutting down in June, it was announced this week that Neopets is going to be revived again. 

The game that made all of us guilty of virtual animal neglect is under new management in the form of the ‘World of Neopets’ team. These former players and developers have raised $4 million in funding to create new content for the site, as well as fix issues presented by the death of Adobe Flash software. Also, there are now plans to host monthly AMAs, and continue the popular 2003 card game. See you all at the Giant Omelet!

We're going to end it there. Who knows what horrors and delights will receive the honor of being summarized next Friday? Only time will tell.