The huge explosion on social media of a cheating scandal inadvertently broadcast at a Coldplay concert recently is something to behold.

If you haven’t seen it yet, there was a clip that churned through the troughs of the internet of two people enjoying a tender embrace that was captured by the kiss cam at a Coldplay concert this last week.

Once they realised their hugging doggy style was being blasted out to every fan and also Chris Martin (omg) there was a suspicious cover-the-face-and-duck situation that occurred, leading everyone to deduce that at least one, if not two cheaters had been caught in the act.

The Philadelphia Phillies, like so many others across the internet, made a parody of the ‘viral’ moment with their mascots (who appears to be a reject of sesame street?).

It’s pretty wild that one would get caught cheating like this, and then having it light up the internet. Like a wildfire.

Trust me, I LOVE comedy. Comedy is so funny. Look how comedic the title of this blog is.
But it feels wrong to take what would lead to an obviously painful experience for entire families. And to then have the experience replayed, again and again, on the world wide web, as their existence has irrevocably shifted?

Where is the compassion? Honestly I squirm when writing that, because I think it makes me sound like I’m all high-and-mighty.
But, like…where is the love?

The love?

The love?

(A Seminal album.)

Why do we laugh at things that, if we stopped and thought about it, really affect the person on the other side of the tiny little screen? Would we choose to act differently? What if it was someone we knew, someone who was close to us? 

Luckily, we can turn the internet off. I know it’s not much of a consolation, because your mind would promptly board the runaway train, but it can be switched off. We only perpetuate suffering in our minds, by replaying the scenes that make us cry over and over in the hopes that something different would have happened. 

And of course, cheating is bad. That is breaking an agreement you have made with someone, in a very hurtful way. But are we all now the rabbling villagers with pitchforks and lighting a flame with each retweet that roasts the unlucky ones to a crisp? Why does the internet generate this mob-like behaviour? Is that just how we humans are?

Of course, there’s kindness on the interwebs too. Just like there is in real life. Exotic bird rescues and grandmothers knitting blankets – but I think everyone can agree, the internet is a fucked up place. There’s the DARK web, and then it also has the DEEP web, and I don’t know what the FUCKING difference is and which one I should be more scared of.

I have dipped a toe in the murky waters because fucked up shit fascinates me, but the depths that human depravity can reach is not somewhere I want to be swimming. Compared to that, getting caught cheating on camera is lower-level scumbagry. But nevertheless, unkind.

I guess you can’t be sure who’s real and who’s not these days, with bots and stuff. So if you get angry about stuff you’re just getting angry at a machine a lot of the time, who doesn’t give a fuck. And being angry is so soul-sucking. But if you’re angry, maybe there’s something you’re trying to prove? Food for thought.

In summarium (don’t know if that’s a real thing, but it sounds cool), things can be funny and come from an unkind place – ‘making fun of’ as opposed to ‘all in good fun’ – and the masses of the internet are like a digital metastasizing cancer of the ‘making fun of’ variety. 

And we can have fun and be kind (oh my god that makes me sound so lame). And that feels more right to me.