If you ventured out on Twitter during the first weekend of 2021, you were probably wondering why everyone was talking about beans.
The answer: “Bean Dad” became Twitter’s first “main character“of the year, the person who has such bad eyesight that people feel compelled to bury him.
On Saturday night, musician and podcast host John Roderick shared a story about his hungry 9-year-old daughter, wanting beans. Twenty-three tweets later, we received the full story.
So, yesterday my daughter (9) was hungry and I was putting together a puzzle, so I said over my shoulder “make some baked beans”. She said, “How?” like all kids do when they want YOU to do it, so I said, “Open a can and put it in the pot.” She brought me the can and said “Open how?”
– john roderick (@johnroderick) January 2, 2021
So I said, “How do you think this works?” She studied it and applied it to the top of the can, on its side. She struggled for a while and with a big, dramatic sigh she said, “Could you just open the can?” Apocalypse Dad was delighted: a Teaching Moment just fell into my lap!
– john roderick (@johnroderick) January 2, 2021
Basically, the child wanted to eat the baked beans. Roderick saw this as a “teaching moment”. He wanted her to open the can herself. His daughter did not understand how a can opener worked because she is 9 years old. Roderick wanted her to find out how the can opener worked on its own. Six hours later, the frustrated 9-year-old boy discovered how to open the can of beans with the can opener.
The story and tone with which it was told infuriated Twitter. “She is 9 years old,” “Apocalypse Dad,” and an exasperated all-caps “SIX HOURS” tended on Twitter all Sunday morning.
All I’m hearing is “that time I told my dad I was hungry and he wouldn’t let me eat for another six hours without good reason”.
Like … did you ever go through this when you were a kid? Do you spend a lot of time hungry and feel bad and like you’re going to pass out? Not? So don’t do this to the child– Communist Siren ☭ (@a_queer_ius) January 3, 2021
Just open the can and give your child your psychopathic beans
– Ed Zitron (@edzitron) January 3, 2021
You’re an idiot, man.
From one father to another, this story is not a cause for pride.
You taught your daughter how little you care about her needs, and just your need to show how much more intelligent you are than she.
FOOD AND THEN TEACH.
Then, delete your account.– BrooklynDad_Defiant! (@mmpadellan) January 3, 2021
People also made jokes.
Yesterday my daughter called me and said she had been taken by kidnappers. She asked if I could use my particular set of skills, acquired over a very long career, to recover. “A-ha!” I thought. “A teaching moment!” (1/278)
– Jason O. Gilbert (@gilbertjasono) January 3, 2021
Someday, Bean Dad will need her help with technology, or end of life care, and she will have her revenge.
– Franklin Leonard (@franklinleonard) January 3, 2021
Bean Dad’s speech was so much that people felt they should participate.
The main brand of Discourse ™ ️ is to feel compelled to weigh, even though you know you don’t need it and you kind of don’t even want to. That said, damn bean daddy
– Sarah jeong (@sarahjeong) January 3, 2021
Bean Dad obviously had to respond to negative responses.
The only thing people are more sensitive to than their parents’ style is the possession of a dog.
– john roderick (@johnroderick) January 3, 2021
The best part of being evaluated by these concerned parent trolls is that they continue to insist on how to deprive my child of baked beans for SIX HOURS is child abuse. Six hours is the time interval between meals. Lunch at noon, dinner at six. They are literally saying CHILD ABUSE.
– john roderick (@johnroderick) January 3, 2021
Now, as the father of two children (one 5 years old and the other one and a half years old), I can say that I personally would not make my children spend six hours trying to figure out how to open a can of beans. I also try to avoid criticizing other parenting “styles”.
Roderick picked up 23 tweets to tell a story in the most condescending way possible. It’s something you would do if you were trying to make readers hate you.
And that’s what made me think that this whole story was written with a purpose just to irritate people. A fan of Roderick’s podcast agrees.
Hey, I’ll take a chance: this is written in John’s voice on his Roderick on the Line podcast. He is telling this story in an intensified way and with a tone that longtime listeners would recognize as a joke and self-disfigurement. There is a context that is completely lost.
– Tyler A. (@Sauce_) January 3, 2021
That goes, especially when you take into account that Ken Jennings of Danger! fame is your podcast co-host.
Extremely jealous and angry because my podcast co-host is going to be a dictionary entry and I never will.
– Ken Jennings (@KenJennings) January 3, 2021
So, what is the moral of this story?
It is not about parenting, beans or jokes. For me, the moral of the story was perfectly worked out by the Twitter user @maplecocaine in 2019.
Each day on twitter there is a main character. The goal is never to be that
– maple cocaine (@maplecocaine) January 3, 2019
Every day, a person’s opinion of Twitter is so hot that it unleashes an avalanche of criticism, turning that person into the “main character” of the day.
Even though we are in a new year, full of new hopes and dreams … some things remain the same.
UPDATE: January 3, 2021, 4:51 pm ET: One of the consequences of being the “main character” of Twitter of the day is that people really start looking at their past.
As Roderick’s old tweets are revealed, it may be time for him to follow the example of his podcast co-host, Ken Jennings, who recently had to apologize for your own old, insensitive tweets.
UPDATE: January 3, 2021, 17:43 ET: The Twitter account for the podcast, “My brother, my brother and me,” announced that it would no longer use Roderick’s music on the show.
We thank John for letting us use one of his songs as the theme of MBMBaM for almost a decade, but his response to today’s situation is emblematic of a pattern of behavior that is contrary to the energy we try to bring to the things we do so it’s time to move on.
– MBMBaM (@MBMBaM) January 3, 2021