Good Guy Greg

On April 26, 2011, a square-jawed stranger appeared on Canvas with a joint dangling from his lips and kindness radiating from every pixel. Good Guy Greg—identity forever disputed, goodness never questioned—became the internet's patron saint of basic human decency.

The format was simple: describe someone doing something considerate that shouldn't be remarkable but somehow was. "Notices you're almost out of gas. Offers to split it." "Sees you eating lunch alone. Joins you." In a digital landscape dominated by Scumbag Steve's entitled villainy, Greg offered absolution—proof that not everyone was terrible, that small kindnesses still existed, that somewhere a man with questionable smoking habits would hold the door for you.

The two formed the internet's first great moral dyad. Where Steve took the last slice, Greg ordered more pizza. Where Steve borrowed your car and returned it empty, Greg filled your tank and detailed the interior. They were yin and yang, each making the other more potent by contrast. You couldn't properly hate Steve without knowing Greg existed, couldn't fully appreciate Greg without remembering Steve was out there somewhere, stealing your Netflix password.

The advice animal format eventually collapsed under its own repetition, and Greg faded alongside his nemesis. The archetypes remained—we still recognize Steves and Gregs in our daily lives—but the format couldn't sustain infinite variations on "person does nice thing."

He held the door open until everyone got through. Then quietly closed it behind him.