While You Were Offline: We'd Like to Buy Furiosa a Coke

It's been a bad week for anyone over the age of 37—unless you happen to be David Letterman, whose final Late Show won all manner of plaudits and adoration on Wednesday, or Bill Murray... but we'll get to him later. (She's outside the age range, but it also wasn't that bad a week for Taylor Swift, with the Bad Blood video breaking viewing records, proving once and for all that bondage store spending sprees = Internet interest or something.) For everyone else, though, it was a week that showed the flaws in Twitter's business model, that most of us were shortchanged by puberty, and that Charlize Theron rules everything around us. Here are the highlights of the last seven days of what no less an authority than Jamiroquai calls virtual insanity.

What Happened: Post-Mad Max: Fury Road, the Internet was taken over by Charlize Theron's character from the movie, Furiosa. And deservedly so, let's be honest.

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs, media think pieces

What Really Happened: It might have been beaten at the box office by the Bellas of Pitch Perfect 2, but in terms of summer movies making craters of cultural impact, Mad Max: Fury Road is the clear winner—and, of all the characters making that impact, it's Charlize Theron's Imperator Furiosa that's leading the way.

There are think pieces arguing that she's the true star of the movie, a "positive step forward" in terms of female action heroes, and the metaphorical spoonful of sugar to help the bitter pill of feminism go down smoother. But we expect think pieces about such a character, right? Maybe a better sign of the character's fandom is the amount of art she inspired:

Actually, maybe the biggest giveaway is the the video above, which mashed up Furiosa with the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt news montage.

The Takeaway: Well, now we know who the breakout star of the summer is. Considering that Theron is suggesting she wouldn't reprise the role in any sequel, we should appreciate her while we can.

What Happened: On Twitter, a "promoted tweet"—a paid message that appears in the feeds of a specially-selected core audience—telling transgender readers to kill themselves appeared on Wednesday, and all hell broke loose.

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs, media think pieces

What Really Happened: On Wednesday, a tweet appeared across the timelines of multiple users on Twitter, purporting to be from Australian feminism activist Caitlin Roper, which said the following: "Trannies, getting surgery won't change your gender. It will only turn you into a deformed freak. End your miserable existence. Kill yourself." Under the tweet, a legend noted "Promoted," meaning that someone had paid to push this tweet wide.

Outside of the sickening hate on display, two things stood out about this: Firstly, that wasn't really Roper's account:

Secondly, despite recently announcing a new stand against trolls, somehow Twitter approved this tweet as a paid, promoted message to be broadcast across its system. The Guardian was the first to catch this, quickly followed by... well, lots and lots of other people.

Responding to press inquiries about what happened, Twitter said the message was against company policy and the tweet was deleted and the account suspended once they'd realized what had happened. The problem, it seems, was that the promoted tweet process is an automated one, which would also explain how a white supremacist had similarly bought a promoted tweet to tell the world that the white race "is dying" earlier this month.

The Takeaway: If we're to take Twitter at its word that it's serious about upping its game against trolls, having an automated system that allows people to send out this kind of hate for between $0.50-$4 per "engagement" is something that's going to have to change immediately. Stamping out sock puppet parody accounts would be nice, as well.

What Happened: Maggie Gyllenhaal revealed that, at age 37, movie executives thought she was too old to play the love interest of a 55-year-old man.

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs, media think pieces

What Really Happened: Congratulations, Hollywood: You have reached peak ridiculousness. In an interview with The Wrap, actress Maggie Gyllenhaal revealed that "there are things that are really disappointing about being an actress in Hollywood that surprise me all the time." Specifically, she said, "I'm 37 and I was told recently I was too old to play the lover of a man who was 55. It was astonishing to me."

Astonishing, too, to the Internet at large, judging my the response the interview received.

The interview provoked a raft of coverage commenting on the revelation.

The Takeaway: Even if the resulting discussion is unlikely to change any decisions being made in movie executive meetings anytime soon—let's be realistic—Gyllenhaal can at least take some comfort in the fact that the online kerfuffle raised her profile enough that she was a trending topic on Twitter for most of Thursday. Surely that will make her hot enough for some future role, right...?

What Happened: Remember that ugly, gormless kid from the Harry Potter movies? Things turned out just fine, as a new photoshoot this week underscored for the Internet.

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs

What Really Happened: This is actor Matthew Lewis in the first Harry Potter film, playing the unfortunate Neville Longbottom:

And this is Matthew Lewis today.

His revealing photoshoot for Attitude magazine raised more than a few eyebrows when it was released online midweek, with Twitter losing its collective mind over what happened to the formerly cuddly Neville:

One Twitter user in particular found it difficult to deal with the change in Matthew's looks.

The Takeaway: Anyone who didn't believe that Hogwarts was a magic school, we suspect that you've just been provided with enough evidence to the contrary.

What Happened: The end of Mad Men got a lot of people talking. Especially about the very last scene.

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs, media think pieces

What Really Happened: The final moments of last weekend's final episode of Mad Men blurred the lines between reality and artfully-composed artifice by featuring one of the most famous real life ads of all time: the 1971 ad for Coca-Cola in which an ethnically-diverse group of singers tell us that they'd like to buy the world a Coke.

The use of the ad launched a number of pieces about the ad's history and potential meaning in the show, but the ambiguity over whether or not Don Draper was responsible for the ad in the show's mythology drove many to distraction... although, as Twitter revealed, there were other reasons the ad's use distracted, as well:

Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner revealed all during a public appearance midweek, saying that Don was behind the ad after all, and that inspiration had come from his retreat in the previous scene. "This idea that some enlightened state, and not just co-option, might've created something that is very pure... it comes from a very good place," he told an audience at the New York Public Library Wednesday evening. "To me, it's the best ad ever made."

Wait. Does that mean Mad Men really did end up being about the positive potential of advertising? Seven seasons for that?

The Takeaway: Somewhere, Coke is very happy about the way this show ended up, although they'd like you to know they really didn't pay for the product placement. (It did, however, result in a staggering 991 percent increase in online chatter about Coke.)

What Happened: If you've been thinking "If only they made holiday specials like they used to," prepare to get very, very excited.

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs

What Really Happened: The best news of the week is almost certainly the release of this teaser:

What's that, you say? Why, it's the announcement of A Very Murray Christmas, a forthcoming holiday special starring Bill Murray and co-written and directed by his Lost in Translation director Sofia Coppola. It's going to be a star-studded affair, with appearances from George Clooney, Amy Poehler, Chris Rock, Miley Cyrus, and many more, and judging by the coverage the announcement received, this might be the best holiday gift ever.

The Takeaway: Suddenly, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has become the second most anticipated part of the holiday season this year.