New Guy

Confirmed 420,414

About

New Guy refers to a character in a comic strip made by artist Mallorie Jessica Udischas, aka sweetbeans99. In the comic, a purple-haired character laughs about a "millionaire gamer-bro douchebag" who got robbed, most likely a reference to PewDiePie getting robbed in early December 2019. Her co-worker, whose nametag reads "New Guy," says, "Hey, how'd you like it if you were robbed?" The purple-haired character then sarcastically remarks that she and the "new guy" could be friends but then says "Hell no." While the comic drew backlash from people who read the comic as the author laughing at PewDiePie's misfortune, others began to sympathize with the "new guy" character, creating fan art emphasizing his apparent wholesomeness. However, some criticized the comic for inciting attacks on the original artist, accusing the message of "empathy," which many claim the characters symbolizes, is disingenuous.

Origin

On December 2nd, 2019, PewDiePie's home with Marzia Kjellberg was reportedly robbed by thieves who broke into the house.^[1] On December 8th, webcomic artist Mallorie Jessica Udischas, aka sweetbeans99, published a comic wherein her main character appeared to be laughing at PewDiePie's misfortune (shown below).^[2] In the comic, a character called "New Guy" attempts to temper her mirth by saying "How would you like it if you were robbed?"

Spread

The comic began spreading on Twitter in late 2019 and early 2020. On January 1st, 2020, OneyNG ^[3] posted the comic, writing "I wanted to start my year good but this was the first thing I saw today," gaining over 2,000 retweets and 24,000 likes. In the replies, people began making edits to the comic, altering the purple-haired character's dialogue and the relationship between her and New Guy. @PaladinDraws^[3] posted an example in which the purple-haired character takes New Guy's advice, gaining over 950 retweets and 8,700 likes (shown below, left). Twitter user @Oh_Turbo_Nerd^[4] posted a Loss edit of the comic, gaining over 290 retweets and 2,000 likes (shown below, right).

As the comic continued spreading through Twitter, others began creating fan art sympathizing with New Guy. For example, Twitter user @Lynthoraxs^[5] posted art in which New Guy told people not to attack @sweetbeans99 and instead focus on being kind (shown below, left). User @sauceelf^[6] tweeted fan art drawn by @kryanari saying they wanted to make New Guy the first wholesome meme of 2020, gaining over 150 retweets and 790 likes (shown below, right). The memes were covered by Cheezburger.^[7]

Criticism

Others, however, accused the use of the character to be a tool of harassment against the artist and LGBTQ+ people. On January 1st, 2020, the original artists tweeted, "Wow, my mentions are fucked. I guess having a bunch of pissbabies call me ugly and horrible for the next few days is gonna be a thing." Before the account went private, the post received more than 2,000 likes and 100 retweets (shown below, left).

In a series of tweets, Twitter^[8] user @aNerdskull compared use of the character to Gamergate. They tweeted, "I've received DMs from more than a couple LGBTQ people who have told me that they have gotten hundreds of people dogpiling them them, harassment, doxing and death threats in DMs, for criticizing Oney and Pewdiepie. Just in case you were wondering what New Guy is all about." They continued, "There's a bunch of gamergate harasser accounts who were never banned painting targets on people they want people to send harassment to, and the sockpuppet armies run by no-life culture warriors have been fired up. It's all the same phenomenon as gamergate." Within 24 hours, the tweet received more than 1,500 likes and 400 retweets (shown below, center).

Twitter user @casersatz tweeted,^[9] "I dunno. I get a feeling that some of these New Guy memes might be a tad disingenuous." They included a series of tweets in which another Twitter user says that someone was triggered by the comic. The tweet received more than 3,700 likes and 750 retweets in less than 24 hours (shown below, right).