#NotMyRodrick / Not My Rodrick

Overview

#NotMyRodrick or Not My Rodrick is a social media hashtag protesting the casting of actor Charlie Wright as the character Rodrick Heffley in the upcoming film Diary of Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul.

Origin

The team behind the original three Diary of a Wimpy Kid films previously stated that there were no plans to create a fourth film in the series due to the aging of the actors. On July 29th, 2016, a fourth movie in the series with an entirely new cast was announced. On March 16th, 2017, the 20th Century Fox YouTube channel uploaded a trailer for the upcoming film Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul, in which Wright (shown below).

In the comments, many lamented that Wright had replaced actor Devon Bostick for the role of the character Rodrick Heffley. Additionally, the trailer gathered upwards of 11,300 dislikes against 1,800 likes over the next 10 days.

Spread

In the coming days, Twitter users began protesting Wright's casting in tweets with the hashtag #NotMyRodrick,^[3] a parody of the anti-Trump hashtag #NotMyPresident (shown below).

On March 23rd, a petition titled "Not My Rodrick" was created on iPetitions,^[1] which complains that Wright "looks like Johnny Depp Willy Wonka." Over the next 72 hours, the petitions gained over 10,000 signatures.

On March 25th, YouTuber Myth upload a video titled "Not my Rodrick #Notmyrodrick" (shown below, left). The following day, YouTuber mitchell kim uploaded a clip of Bostick wishing Wright "all the best" as the new Rodrick in the film series (shown below, right). Meanwhile, Redditor Fisbian submitted a post claiming that "Not My Rodrick" memes were "a hot investment" to /r/MemeEconomy.^[4] On March 27th, The Sun^[2] published an article about the #NotMyRodrick campaign.

Charlie Wright Discusses Campaign

On March 25th, 2024, Charlie Wright posted a vlog about his experience, detailing that he got death threats during the #NotMyRodrick campaign (shown below).

Search Interest

External References