| Carl Diggler | |
|---|---|
 Carl Diggler's Twitter avatar. Diggler superimposed a Santa Claus hat onto his photo during the 2015 Christmas season and was unable to change it back because of his technological ineptitude.[1] | |
| First appearance | October 13, 2015[2] |
| Created by | Blake Zeff, Felix Biederman, Virgil Texas |
| Voiced by | Felix Biederman |
| In-universe information | |
| Full name | Carl Allison Diggler |
| Nickname | "The Dig" |
| Occupation | |
| Spouse | An ex-wife, referred to as "Ex-Mrs. The Dig" |
| Significant other | On-again, off-again relationship with "KweenTrashWytch✨✨" |
| Children | Colby |
Carl "The Dig" Allison Diggler is a fictional American journalist. Introduced in 2015, the character was created by Blake Zeff and mostly written by Felix Biederman and Virgil Texas for CAFE, an online publisher of political news and satire, in the run-up to the 2016 United States presidential election.
Diggler, a middle-aged, centrist pundit who prides himself on his "inside the Beltway" knowledge of the Washington, D.C. political scene, is the purported author of a column published at CAFE and a keen, if clueless, Twitter user. Portrayed as a smug, ignorant blowhard, the character hero-worships the bombast and theatre of American politics with little concern for its consequences. His writing frequently exposes details of his failed marriage and protracted family court proceedings for custody of his son Colby. Texas described the target of the character as "ridiculous" pundits. During 2016 Diggler also hosted The DigCast, a podcast featuring weekly guests, with Biederman giving voice to Diggler and Texas playing Diggler's millennial intern. Biederman also established the Chapo Trap House podcast in 2016, which Texas has co-hosted.
Writing as Diggler, Biederman and Texas began using their intuition to guess the outcomes of primary contests in the election. By the end of the primary season, Diggler claimed to have correctly predicted more winners than data journalist Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight blog. However, that comparison may be misleading: depending how predictive success is measured, Diggler either comes out ahead or roughly on par with FiveThirtyEight's model. Texas ran an op-ed in The Washington Post about their predictive success and the ways Diggler exposed the flaws of supposedly objective data-journalistic techniques.[3]
- ^ Biederman, Felix; Texas, Virgil (March 23, 2016). "Carl Diggler Announcement: My Lawsuit Against Twitter, Tinder & Several TV Networks". Cafe. Archived from the original on November 18, 2016. Retrieved September 12, 2016.
- ^ Biederman, Felix; Texas, Virgil (October 13, 2015). "Debate Preview: Why My Money's on Jim Webb". Cafe. Archived from the original on September 21, 2016. Retrieved September 12, 2016.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
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