Internet sleuths identified the people in the video from a Coldplay concert as Andy Byron, the now-former CEO of tech company Astronomer, and Kristin Cabot, the company’s head of HR.tiktok screenshot
By now, you’ve likely seen the clip. Or maybe one of the memes, reaction videos or real-life re-enactments that have swallowed the internet in recent days.
The original 15-second video, filmed by an audience member at Coldplay’s concert near Boston last week and posted on TikTok, shows the jumbotron cutting to a seemingly happy couple embracing and then abruptly pulling away from each other when they realize they’re on camera. “Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy,” quipped Coldplay’s Chris Martin. The clip has more than 125 million views on TikTok.
Internet sleuths quickly identified the people in the video as Andy Byron, the now former chief executive of tech company Astronomer, and Kristin Cabot, the company’s head of HR, as well as the fact that they appeared to be married to other people.
People on social media began immediately digging into Mr. Byron’s and Ms. Cabot’s Facebook and LinkedIn accounts like forensic investigators, creating digital dossiers of personal information that were then shared and further dissected on TikTok.
The attention spilled over into the real world, too. On the weekend, major-league sports teams recreated the scene at games and brands posted their own memes to capitalize on the moment.
The kiss-cam clip contains a confluence of factors that made it the perfect viral storm. It happened at the concert of one of the biggest bands in the world, captures alleged infidelity – one of the juiciest types of gossip – and involves a person in a position of power.
The viral reaction highlights social media’s rabid obsession with online sleuthing and subsequent public shaming. But it also reveals how sleuthing can go too far and wade into murky ethical territory when it involves non-public figures.
“Sleuthing has a long history on the internet, in part because it’s a deeply social practice that unites people around a common goal,” said Brooke Erin Duffy, a social-media researcher and associate professor at Cornell University, in an interview. “Social media fuels these activities by enabling users to sift through our digital traces, cobbling together information from across platforms and user accounts.”
After Mr. Byron and Ms. Cabot were identified, the sleuthing snowballed. Family photos of them, both real and AI-generated, were disseminated and reshared, while commenters debated their past relationships and children. They both deleted their LinkedIn profiles.
Not all of the information posted has been correct. Astronomer released a statement clarifying that a third person who was seen in the video seemingly cringing at Mr. Byron’s and Ms. Cabot’s reaction was not an employee at the company, as was widely speculated on social media, and that a statement supposedly from Mr. Byron was fake.
Many on social media didn’t seem too concerned about posting or resharing misinformation. Snooping on the online personal life of a CEO seemed like fair game.
“Sometimes people are hesitant to do that extent of sleuthing if they feel like someone has really been harmed,” said Emily Mendelson, a doctoral candidate at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who studies how social media affects our relationships, in an interview. “The fact that he’s the CEO of a tech company absolves people of the ethical qualms we would normally have.”
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But digital vigilantes don’t only go after those in traditional positions of social or economic power. Before the Coldplay kiss-cam, there was, in classic internet parlance, Couch Guy and Airplane Guy, other examples of alleged cheaters caught on video who then inadvertently became the persona non grata on social media.
Robert McCoy, better known as Couch Guy, was accused of cheating after a video of him reacting to a surprise visit from his long-distance girlfriend went viral. In a personal essay for Slate, Mr. McCoy described being vilified online and how internet sleuths revealed his name, birthdate and place of residence. “It felt like the entertainment value of the meme began to overshadow our humanity,” he wrote.
Ms. Mendelson, who has studied the fallout of the Couch Guy meme, said internet sleuths are often drawn to infidelity stories because relationships are a universal experience.
“There’s a weird, toxic parasociality people have about other people’s relationships because they don’t have to experience any of the ramifications of breaking up or heartbreak,” she said. “And since relationships are the foundation of how we experience others, people feel qualified to comment about it.”
Catching cheaters is its own niche on social media. There are more than 200 Facebook groups named “Are we dating the same guy?” which provide a place for women to share the dating profiles of men they’ve matched, while a common video template on TikTok is users publicizing conversations they overheard of alleged cheating.
“Coldplay-gate” draws on this online phenomenon, and in the process enables a type of voyeurism formerly only reserved for celebrities or other public figures, said Dr. Duffy.
“These events may seem trivial or glib, but they immerse people in deeply moral debates,” she said. “The difference, however, is that unlike traditional celebrities who purportedly ‘put themselves out there,’ the visibility Byron and Cabot face was largely unanticipated.”
The day after the Coldplay kiss-cam video was posted, Astronomer said it was launching a formal investigation into the matter. By the next day, the company announced Mr. Byron had resigned as CEO.
But for some online, his resignation doesn’t mark the end of the saga.
On Polymarket, the crypto-betting platform, there’s currently half a million dollars in bets on whether Mr. Byron and Ms. Cabot both get divorced by the end of the summer.
