Culture Critics: Ever-Present Cameras Leave Danger of Online Scorn

You don't have to be caught canoodling at a Coldplay concert to quickly find yourself the target of online scorn, and once that happens, it will take a lot to fix you, as the cameras are always rolling and millions of people are ready to weigh in on the latest scandal of the day, culture critics are warning. 

Andy Byron, CEO of the tech company Astronomer, learned that the hard way Wednesday night, when he and his human resources chief, Kristin Cabot, quickly ducked out of the way when they were recorded in an embrace on a Jumbotron "kiss cam" video at the Coldplay concert in Boston, reports The Washington Post Saturday.  

They didn't hide fast enough, however, to keep Coldplay frontman Chris Martin from joking that they might be having an affair, or to keep someone from posting the clip to TikTok. The video has not only drawn millions of views but has led to a free-for-all in memes from large corporations and others all over social media, eager to cash in on the gossip of the day. 

Commenters not only quickly identified Byron and Cabot, but were equally quick to pick up on the names of his family members and share out their private details on Facebook. 

And now, Byron, who appears to be married, has been placed on leave from his job at Astronomer, and his company's board has said it will investigate the clip. 

"Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability,” the company said in an X statement, later adding that Chief Product Officer Pete DeJoy will serve as interim CEO.

But with the proliferation of cameras, both mounted in public places and on everyone's phones, people nationwide are being forced to learn from their mistakes while the internet weighs in heavily to slam them for what they see as their moral failings. 

Cultural critics say that the constant scrutiny often doesn't lead watchers into making intelligent decisions on what they're watching, and often, the shame game leaves the online borders and leads people to contact the employers and family members of the people they think they see acting badly. 

For example, when a mom in Texas posted that she attended a neighborhood party and other attendees did not appreciate the antipasto salad she'd made, users quickly tracked down the party's host, who ended up uploading and then taking down a video to apologize. 

And as far as the Coldplay matter is concerned, "this particular incident will certainly create new awareness for people in public spaces," Elizabeth Parks, president and chief marketing officer for Parks Associates, a consumer technology market-research firm, told The Post. 

This means that it's not only public figures who are facing public condemnation, but private citizens like Byron, who was largely unknown until just a few days ago, when the bright lights at a concert served to guide people home to condemn him. 

Internet culture critic Rayne Fisher-Quann, who writes a popular Substack, said such cases, with some going so far as to contact Byron's wife and children, show that there is an audience who is desperate for the next scandal, and that they are not worried about what happens to the latest victim of the online shaming. 

Fisher-Quann said internet users often believe that by targeting the people they see in viral videos, they're helping to serve up the punishment they feel that they deserve. 

She said that when she first started writing about "panopticon," where social media users monitor sites for perceived bad behavior by people who didn't agree to be filmed, audiences still cared about whether they had the right to become involved so deeply in others' private lives. 

But now, Fisher-Quann said, the digital surveillance from the government and corporations has caused the constant monitoring to be normalized, leaving anyone to lose something they can't replace: Their privacy.