As Coldplay frontman Chris Martin reminds us, lights will guide us home. But will they fix society’s penchant for hypocrisy and witch hunts against total strangers? Unlikely.
By now, everyone with an internet connection has seen the jumbotron video that led to cheating allegations involving the former CEO of tech company Astronomer Inc. and the company’s chief people officer.
During a recent Coldplay show, the pair were caught in what appeared to be a romantic embrace on the big screen at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. Their unsuccessful attempts to shield themselves from the display and the more than 66,000 fans in attendance caught Martin’s notice, who joked, “Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy.”
At least one concertgoer captured the moment on her cellphone and posted it to TikTok, where it was shared and reshared millions upon millions of times.
Some might argue that it feels good to expose and drag a couple of alleged cheaters who many believe got exactly what they deserved.
The news cycle, memes and parodies that immediately ensued have been impossible to avoid. Some might argue that it feels good to expose and drag a couple of alleged cheaters who many believe got exactly what they deserved. (So far at least one half of the "kiss cam" couple is already feeling more tangible consequences; Astronomer CEO Andy Byron resigned over the weekend.) But I’m far more disturbed by the nature and scope of the backlash.
To be clear, I have profound empathy for the families at the center of this mess. Thankfully, I was an adult before I learned about how my own family was rocked by infidelity years earlier. Every detail shared with me was shocking, sordid and sad. But I got to process it privately. There was no rabid internet mob waiting to make my family suffer as much, and for as long, as possible.
Decades later, I would find myself in therapy dealing with the fallout of a dysfunctional childhood, in all its gory detail. But it was never because the court of public opinion inserted itself into my home life.
To say that the families at the center of this spectacle — and most unfortunately, their children — are likely to be humiliated and traumatized is an understatement. The damage is done. I don’t envy their loved ones and what they must be going through as a result of this event, made worse by the morality brigade that sped to find their social media profiles and post messages of sympathy, self-righteousness or spite — all equally unhelpful. The social media user who posted the original clip has expressed few regrets for upending a series of lives, her Venmo and Cash App handles on full display.
To say that the families at the center of this spectacle — and most unfortunately, their children — are likely to be humiliated and traumatized is an understatement.
Every consequence that society decided this pair should endure may not be what their families want or need. Families weather all kinds of storms and subscribe to all kinds of values and belief systems. Not only do we not know what should happen next, but it is absolutely none of our business. And yet, when we like, repost and reshare, we also share responsibility for the collective damage.
Given the sheer scope of publicity this event generated, we should also be forced to consider our collective hypocrisy. Because who gets to be a cheater in our society can feel maddeningly arbitrary. One man accused of cheating loses his job and perhaps his family. Another man becomes president of the United States. If anything, some of the president’s supporters seem to celebrate his virility or excuse it as the predictable excesses of the rich and powerful.
Cheating is one of those behaviors that almost universally offends cultural sensibilities. It feels scary, because it serves as a reminder that the rules that safeguard social contracts like marriage and monogamy aren’t as unbreakable as we would like to admit. And so the online mobs grow in size and strength, feeding off self-righteous morality and anonymity and memes. Whether these families wanted revenge is immaterial.
But the fallout is also instructive. Our collective desire to hurt people we know nothing about is often far more destructive than the moment we are responding to. Our responses may also say more about us than the people we’re targeting. And as we decide, over and over again, that our culture is entitled to arbitrarily play both judge and jury over others’ private lives, we should also remember another inconvenient truth: Every single one of us — and by extension, our families — is potentially susceptible to a camera and a global pile-on. May the odds be ever in our favor.