Latest news with #Byron
New York Post
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Here's the real reason the Coldplay concert cheating scandal went absolutely mega-viral
It was the cuddle – then scuttle – seen 'round the world. The viral infamy that's engulfed Astronomer CEO Andy Byron's cringe moment with his HR chief at a Coldplay concert has been fueled by a thirst to see powerful execs get their comeuppance, media experts said. 'It was a viral antidote to the corporate cringe most people live and breathe,' digital consultant Dan Roy Carter told The Post. 'It was humanizing, humorous and ultimately a moment for the world to laugh at people in perceived positions of authority or power in an unsuspecting setting.' The unifying reaction was a classic case of shared 'schadenfreude,' where glee is derived from an enemy's misfortune, pointed out University of Southern California prof Jonathan Gratch. 3 Andy Byron and Kristin Cabot at the Coldplay concert. Grace Springer via Storyful The enemy in this case: The millionaire execs Byron and Chief People Officer Kristin Cabot. 'People hate executives these days and take pleasure in their pain (think Elon),' he added. People couldn't get enough. For instance, the Coldplay scandal has had twice as many social media mentions as one of the last big viral stories: Jeff Bezo's lavish Venice wedding to Lauren Sanchez, according to data compiled by analytics company Sprout Social. Google search volume for Andy Byron was so monumental in the days following the concert that other viral trends like the Hawk Tuah girl, Raygun and the Titan submersible paled in comparison. Footage of Byron, who has since resigned from the company, and Cabot rapidly spread across the internet when the pair was caught getting cozy at the band's Wednesday show at Gillette Stadium. The two were embracing, with Byron's arms wrapped around Cabot's chest, when the camera panned to them – leading the two execs to panic. Cabot's hands flew in front of her face while Byron hit the deck, prompting lead singer Chris Martin to speculate they may be 'having an affair.' 'He ducked down like shots were fired. It was funny to see. It was so childish,' said Carlos Ramos, a New York City music video producer. He added that the internet reveled in the ignorance of the two execs, contributing to the wildfire-like spread of the viral moment. 'They both didn't expect to be on a camera — which is ridiculous in this era — with so many people with phones and cameras. They just froze, caught up in the moment,' Ramos, 50, said. 3 The viral moment has dominated the internet for days. csuarez 'CEOs, HR chiefs are not necessarily popular as individuals or roles, this is where you get a certain amount of 'ooh busted,'' Syracuse professor of communication T. Makana Chock told The Post, agreeing with other experts in her field. She added that people, even before social media, are quick to judge others, adding to the buzz. 3 Even the Phillies took part in the fun. R A W S A L E R T S Chock also stressed the clip 'told a story in a very few seconds' that then allowed social media users to add their own commentary and creativity to the situation. In one popular iteration, the Philadelphia Phillies did a riff off the kiss-cam awkwardness. 'Every so often you get something that carries and develops a life of its own outside of the original context,' she said. 'It's a perfect storm.'
Vox
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Vox
Should we feel weird about the Coldplay cheating drama?
is a culture writer interested in reality TV, movies, pop music, Black media, and celebrity culture. Previously, she wrote for the Daily Beast and contributed to several publications, including Vulture, W Magazine, and Bitch Media. What does it mean to be a private individual in public? Are we all just characters waiting to go viral? These questions have resurfaced following the instantly-infamous Jumbotron incident that occurred during a Coldplay concert last week. Astronomer CEO Andy Byron, who's married, and the company's head of human resources, Kristin Cabot, were caught cuddling before trying (and failing) to evade the camera. Chris Martin quipped, apparently accurately, that they acted like they were having an affair. Some, though, have taken a more hands-on approach to the drama. Once the concert footage went viral, users flooded the comments of Byron and Cabot's LinkedIn pages before they were taken down. Another Coldplay concertgoer sent TMZ additional footage of the couple canoodling. Users identified Byron's wife, flooding her social media, as well as a third Astronomer executive, who was spotted on the Jumbotron laughing at the ordeal. Understandably, a married CEO getting caught and subsequently resigning for having inappropriate relations with a subordinate hasn't warranted much sympathy. The ordeal is amusing to the extent that the players are largely unrelatable and seemingly thoughtless. Still, the fallout has been disconcerting to some. While the couple was exposed in a seemingly organic and accidental way, the speed at which the story escalated, with the help of online sleuths and even brands weighing in, demonstrated how easily personal matters can become public spectacles. It raises some obvious concerns about our relationship to privacy in a digital culture where the surveillance of strangers has been normalized and personal information is increasingly accessible. What happens to privacy when everything is available? What happens when exposing others is more and more commonly dressed up as fun? Since the early days of social media, average people have been at risk of becoming public, widely discussed figures overnight. Still, the advent of TikTok has made this a much more common occurrence — frequently without the permission of the people who go viral. The idea that you could be watched at any time but can never know when has gone from a philosophical prison design — Jeremy Bentham's concept of the panopticon— to a state of reality. In a 2023 BuzzFeed News story, reporter Clarissa-Jan Lim described this mostly TikTok-driven phenomenon as 'panopticontent,' where 'everything is content for the creating, and everyone is a nonplayer character in [users'] world[s].' In many cases, filming strangers has been proven to be a correct and necessary course of action. The Black Lives Matter movement was bolstered by citizens recording their negative interactions with police, for awareness-raising and proof in seeking justice. This seemed to inspire a surge in 'Karen' videos, exposing people for racist and other discriminatory behavior. However, post-pandemic, the tendency to pull out your phone and press record has descended into something much less urgent and more opportunistic. We've witnessed this before. At the height of tabloid culture in the '90s and early 2000s, we watched celebrities get hounded by paparazzi and have their personal lives examined with a microscope in magazines. Associate professor Jenna Drenten, who studies digital consumer culture at Loyola University Chicago, coined the term 'TikTok tabloid' to describe how this behavior has translated to the app in much more participatory fashion from observers. However, she says that users have created a power imbalance by subjecting regular people to this sort of spotlight. 'In the past, there was an implicit social contract: celebrities traded privacy for fame, and audiences felt justified in scrutinizing them,' says Drenten. 'But that logic doesn't cleanly apply to regular people caught in viral moments. And yet, the same infrastructure of judgment, spectacle, and moral commentary gets applied to them.' This behavior isn't just user-driven. It's often amplified and commodified by brands, as seen with Neon, Chipotle, and even betting platforms, like Polymarket, following the Coldplay incident. Drenten says that the 'blurring of public spectacle, private consequence, and corporate opportunism' is where things get even more 'ethically murky.' 'The viral attention economy is no longer limited to individuals or content creators,' she says. 'Brands are increasingly acting like culture-jacking spectators, helping to fuel the pile-on.' A larger problem often occurs after this content circulates and rakes in tons of views. The social mystery at the heart of any human drama routinely incites further engagement and sleuthing, with users becoming participants in the saga. As with the Astronomer CEO and his family, spectators usually end up doxxing the people involved, whether that's exposing their job positions or their home addresses. As this behavior gets swept up in more socially-sanctioned reactions (like jokes from regular people and brands), it affirms an increasing loss of etiquette around personal information, one that's been spearheaded by tech corporations, according to one Cornell University professor. Helen Nissenbaum, author of Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life, says tech companies have been influential in shaping our views on privacy based on what's accessible to us, creating an 'all bets are off' approach to spreading information. 'The big tech platforms have gotten away with a really poor conception of privacy,' Nissenbaum says. 'It's allowed them to say things like, 'If it's in public, anything goes.' This is how OpenAI defended itself by saying, 'We're scraping stuff on the open web without asking.'' Apps have normalized collecting and sharing users' personal information to target advertisers. There are now websites, like Did My Friends Vote, where you can easily but not always accurately access someone's voting history. These issues around theft and consent are playing out in the development of generative AI. The New York Times is currently suing OpenAI for using their original content to train its popular AI tool, ChatGPT. This sense of entitlement trickles down to practically anyone who owns a phone. Nissenbaum says, as a result, we need to adopt a 'new theory' and new 'social norms' around privacy. One way is to remind people that these extreme levels of surveillance and information-gathering are, in her words, 'creepy.' The consequence is a world where people feel less free to be their authentic selves in public, whether that's dressing how they want or attending a protest. 'When we get to this point where we accept that people can take videos, take photos, post it online for ICE or NSA or whoever to grab those photos, now we're in a police state,' she says. For now, the Coldplay Jumbotron incident might warrant some genuine laughs. But if we value not only our privacy but our sense of individuality, our impulse to amplify strangers' drama could probably use some reflection.
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Chris Martin Jokes About Kiss-Cam Scandal at First Coldplay Concert Since Video Went Viral
Chris Martin is giving his concertgoers a heads-up that, yes, they might be featured on the jumbotron at one of his band's shows. The Coldplay frontman jokingly referenced the recent kiss-cam scandal involving Astronomer CEO Andy Byron during his band's latest concert — the first since the video went viral. On Saturday night, the singer lightheartedly warned fans that they might appear on the jumbotron during the band's show at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin. More from The Hollywood Reporter Travis Scott's 'JackBoys 2' Tops Chart, Ends Justin Bieber's Six-Album Streak of No. 1 Debuts Billie Eilish Reveals 3D Collaboration With James Cameron Is in the Works Astronomer CEO Andy Byron Resigns After Getting Caught on Coldplay Kiss-Cam 'We'd like to say hello to some of you in the crowd,' he said in a video posted on X, which sparked cheers and laughter from those in attendance. 'How we're gonna do that is we're gonna use our cameras and put some of you on the big screen. So please, if you haven't done your makeup, do your makeup now.' That, of course, was a reference to the kiss-cam scandal that has taken the Internet by storm and dominated social media for the past several days. It all started during Coldplay's Boston concert on Wednesday when the jumbotron caught Byron with his arms around his top human resources executive, Kristin Cabot, in a kiss-cam segment. However, once they realized they were on the jumbotron, Byron ducked down so he couldn't be seen, and Cabot turned around, trying to hide her face. Both Byron and Cabot are reportedly married to other people. In videos posted of the incident online, Martin joked, 'Either they're having an affair or they're just very shy.' Saturday's concert in Madison was Coldplay's first show since the incident. After a video of the incident surfaced online, Byron and Cabot were reportedly put on leave, and Byron has since resigned. Astronomer said in a statement that it is searching for his replacement. 'Astronomer is committed to the values and culture that have guided us since our founding,' the statement reads. 'Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met. Andy Byron has tendered his resignation, and the Board of Directors has accepted. The Board will begin a search for our next Chief Executive as Cofounder and Chief Product Officer Pete DeJoy continues to serve as interim CEO.' The statement continues, 'Before this week, we were known as a pioneer in the DataOps space, helping data teams power everything from modern analytics to production AI. While awareness of our company may have changed overnight, our product and our work for our customers have not. We're continuing to do what we do best: helping our customers with their toughest data and AI problems.' Best of The Hollywood Reporter From 'Party in the U.S.A.' to 'Born in the U.S.A.': 20 of America's Most Patriotic (and Un-Patriotic) Musical Offerings Most Anticipated Concert Tours of 2025: Beyoncé, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar & SZA, Sabrina Carpenter and More Hollywood's Most Notable Deaths of 2025 Solve the daily Crossword
Buzz Feed
10 hours ago
- Business
- Buzz Feed
I Want To Know The Most Messed Up Thing Your Boss Has Ever Done
By now, you've likely caught a case of secondhand embarrassment after the former CEO of Astronomer, Andy Byron, was caught on a kiss-cam allegedly cheating on his partner with another member of the company, which went viral and subsequently led to his resignation from his role. It's been the talk of the internet for the last week, even prompting Coldplay to warn their audience first before panning the camera at random. One could imagine how many questions the employees of Astronomer had to field in the wake of the incident. With that said, Byron certainly isn't the first CEO to get caught up in a scandal. I'm positive that the majority of bosses and CEOs in this world have probably found themselves in some sort of controversy, though maybe it wasn't as it was, though. With that said, I want to ask the BuzzFeed Community: What is the most messed-up and wildest thing that your boss or CEO has ever done? Did your CEO get caught having an affair with the secretary, and promote her instead of firing her? How about that time your manager asked the team to "tighten budgets" while he expensed a Rolex? Was there ever an incident where your CEO faked climate credentials just to get good PR with a high-profile client? Did your CEO launch a "sustainability" campaign while flying private jets to Coachella? Has your boss ever told you to 'be more passionate about the mission' while laying you off without severance? Did your company claim to be 'family first' while denying your coworker parental leave? Whatever the scandal was, big or small, we want to know the wildest and most messed-up things you've ever witnessed your CEO or boss do. If you have some wild stories about your current or former boss/CEO/employer, drop them in the comment section below. However, if you prefer remaining anonymous, feel free to fill out the form below.
Time of India
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Big Bombshell Revelation: Did Megan Kerrigan plan Coldplay Concert Kiss Cam expose to reveal Andy Byron's affair? Here's all details
Coldplay Concert Kiss Cam Video Was Coincidence or Plan? Live Events Megan Kerrigan Remains Silent Divorce could make Megan richer Andy Byron Negotiated Large Severance Deal FAQs (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel As per a conspiracy theory, it could be possible, media reports said. The authenticity of the theory cannot be independently users believe this public scandal may not have been accidental. The theory suggests Byron's wife, Megan Kerrigan, may have known about the affair and influenced the moment to her Coldplay concert video showed Byron and Cabot on the Kiss Cam, which instantly went viral. Many saw it as a coincidence, but a section of online users have started speculating otherwise. A caption on one of the viral videos questioned the randomness of the moment, asking, 'Why did Coldplay manage to expose a cheating couple out of 60,000 people?'This theory claims Megan Kerrigan had advance knowledge of her husband's affair. According to the theory, she used the moment to expose Byron publicly and benefit from the fallout. However, the theory offers no explanation as to how Kerrigan could have influenced Coldplay's camera operators or concert the scandal broke, Megan Kerrigan has stayed away from public appearances. She removed 'Byron' from her Facebook name and reportedly left her marital home in Massachusetts. The $2.4 million property she moved to is located in Maine, and Daily Mail reports say friends and family have been visiting her growing attention, Kerrigan has not released an official statement. Some messages in her name have been circulating online, but their authenticity is unverified. So far, she has made no comments about the incident, the theory, or the viral say Megan Kerrigan could benefit financially if she files for divorce. Her husband Andy Byron is believed to have a net worth between $20 million and $70 million. Under Massachusetts law, couples married for over seven years must equally split marital assets, unless there is a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement in place. It is not clear if Megan and Andy signed any such she chooses divorce, Megan could receive a large portion of the couple's shared wealth. Given the nature of the public scandal and its emotional impact, legal experts say a settlement could include more than just financial Byron resigned from Astronomer shortly after the kisscam video went viral. The company initially placed both Byron and Kristin Cabot on leave as an internal investigation began. But Byron stepped down from his role, and Pete DeJoy was named acting claim Byron negotiated a generous exit package from Astronomer. The exact figures have not been revealed, but sources close to the company say the amount was significant. Kristin Cabot's employment status has not been confirmed by Astronomer or media is no evidence confirming Kerrigan influenced the kisscam. The theory is based on speculation and lacks factual Massachusetts law, she could receive up to half of the marital assets, estimated between $10 million and $35 million, depending on existing agreements.
