Naturally, The Internet Has Now Turned On Cinnamon Toast Crunch Shrimp Tail Guy
Comedian and author Jensen Karp went massively viral this week for tweeting his unsavory discovery of sugar-coated shrimp tails in his Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal. Just days after using his disturbing find to slam the brand and its maker, General Mills, on Twitter, social media has abruptly turned against him. Karp, 41, is now being accused of lying, stealing a podcast concept and shaming a former sex partner, among other allegations.
via New York Post
This is the internet circle of life.
A person goes viral for the absolute dumbest reason, they trend for a couple of days, pick up thousands of followers, maybe do a few national interviews, and then… it’s all over. Not just the internet fame, but their entire damn life.
Remember Bean Dad? He’s probably sleeping under an overpass somewhere tonight.
Well, unfortunately, that fate is now coming to Shrimp Tails Guy, Jensen Karp. Honestly, I’m surprised it took this long. But I kinda feel bad for the guy. For the first part of his career, he was known as Mr. Topanga, but now after he finally makes a name for himself… he’s getting dragged through the mud by the Internet.
We Americans haven’t been this focused on a shrimp tail since the last time we all went to a hibachi restaurant, but we’re entrenched. A.D. blogged about the entire saga the other day, but unfortunately, like all good Internet fairy tales, they come to a screeching halt once we learn the main subject of Internet fame isn’t perfect.
And now the cancellation process of Shrimp Tails Guy has commenced:
Brandon’s addition to the Jensen Karp Yelp reviews doesn’t seem like a very strong complaint. Sure, lying is always bad, but is calling someone a marketing professional a bad thing?
Also, apparently, the term for going famous online only to have your life ripped apart by the Internet has a term, and it’s “milkshake duck’ed.”
But don’t worry. If you’re Team Shrimp Tails Guy in this whole thing, you’re in good company. One of the biggest defenders of Karp’s character is… wait a minute… Mike Shinoda?? Lead singer of Linkin Park?!
Oh, but dammit, here’s Brandon again to pile on Karp.
Look, like many of you, I don’t know Jensen Karp personally. I can’t tell you if he’s a dick or a great guy. But either way, who cares? Why do we have to dig up his past just because he found some damn seafood in his cereal? Can’t the story end at “Wow, shrimp tails in Cinnamon Toast Crunch! That’s wild!”?? Part of me hopes I never have anything blow up on the Internet. Like if I find a piece of broccoli that kinda looks like Mark Ruffalo, tweet it, and it goes viral, I can only imagine the kind of crap people will dig up or say about me. You know why? Because I’m not perfect. And you might want to sit down for this, but neither are you. So who are we to judge?
I’m not trying to defend Jensen here. The guy might be a total douche bag. But why should any of us care? He’s not going viral for being a perfect person. He’s going viral for NEARLY EATING CINNAMON TOTAST SHRIMP!
If we put the amount of time we put towards searching into Shrimp Tails Guy’s, Bean Dad’s, Chewbacca Mom’s, and every other random Internet celebrity’s past as we did missing children, our phones would never again surprise us with one of those Amber Alert alarms.
All I’m saying is enjoy life, be nice to others, and if someone nearly eats fish in his cereal, let’s laugh about it, have fun, and move on – instead of trying to figure out whether or not the person paid his taxes in 2011, said any nasty things in high school, or believes conspiracy theories that the government infiltrates people’s brains through Kevin Hart’s comedy.
