Passenger Accused Of Exposing A Cheating Husband On A Plane & Violating His Wife's Privacy By Posting It Online
She's gone wildly viral after rallying the internet to track down his wife without her consent.
PeopleImages.com - Yuri A / Shutterstock If you saw a man cheating on his wife on a plane, what would you do? Would you mind your business? Or would you film the stranger, post it on the internet, and lead a social media charge to find his wife and expose him?
TikToker @carolinerened chose the latter, and her social media exposé of a married man on a plane who was getting cozy with his seatmate has left many furious after the online campaign she began roped his wife into the drama without her consent.
People are accusing a passenger of violating a woman's privacy after filming her cheating husband on a plane.
Of course, the question of whether one has a duty to expose a married cheater is an age-old debate. But when TikToker @carolinerened spied what she was convinced was an unfaithful husband on a recent United flight, there was no debate on what to do: She immediately began filming.
"If this man is your husband flying United Airlines, flight 2140, from Houston to New York, he’s probably going to be staying with Katy tonight," the TikToker wrote in her caption on the video of the man getting cozy with his seatmate.
"[He] and Katy met at the airport bar and haven’t left each other's side since then," she went on to say. "He convinced her to change her seat so she could sit next to him and they could drink."
She then included other details she'd gleaned from eavesdropping — where he lives, his hobbies, why he was traveling to New York, and that he has an 8-year-old daughter who recently danced at a baseball game. She then added a directive to anyone viewing the video to take all this information and "do your thing." And boy, did they.
Internet sleuths identified the man, his would-be mistress, and his wife almost immediately and began a campaign to inform her of his cheating.
Within hours of the video being posted, commenters had identified the husband and his spouse. "He’s on Facebook; the internet is undefeated," the top comment on the video read, along with the man's name. The next most popular comment on the video was simply, "his wife's name is [redacted]."
An update soon followed, informing people @carolinerened had spotted them "making out" and going to the bathroom together. Scores of stitches, duets, and reposts began cropping up, featuring not just the man's wife's name but photographs of her from social media.
"Proof that us ladies are better than FBI agents," another commenter wrote. "She was in ear range. She’s a mandatory reporter," another joked in reference to @carolinerened. "That’s what you call a girl’s girl," another commenter wrote.
At no point did it occur to any of these people that they were dealing with private citizens' private lives. At no point did it seem to matter to any of them that a child is involved. At no point did anyone seem to consider that the cheated-on woman in question might not appreciate her private life being exposed in such a manner.
At no point did it seem to give anyone pause that they were providing private details—including an 8-year-old child's recent whereabouts — that could easily be used for harm. But it certainly occurred to others on the internet, and a major — and very well-deserved — backlash quickly ensued.
People are furious with the TikToker and her followers for exposing the cheating man's wife's private life without any thought to how it might harm her or her daughter.
It must be said before we go any further: This is a sick thing to do, and it's indicative of a truly sick trend in our culture, one in which internet users consider themselves not only entitled but obligated to expose people they deem to be doing wrong without a single care in the world for anyone's privacy, safety or autonomy.
That it never seems to have even crossed the transom of anyone's mind that this man's wife might not want the potential shattering of her marriage and family splashed on the internet for the entertainment of strangers on an app is not just appalling. It's barbaric.
TikToker @prettycritical has gone viral for stating this in the most chillingly eloquent terms possible. Her video opens with a sort of bait-and-switch — she makes it seem like she has more gossip on this viral story to lure people in before making an about-face: "I'm just playing; you guys are disgusting. Like actually repellent."
She then honed in on what is arguably the vilest part of this entire thing — the way its proponents cast it as a form of justice being served, a sort of activism — women standing up for other women by putting men in their place. We certainly need all of that we can get nowadays, but this spectacle is not that.
"You guys are loving this like you cannot get enough," @prettycritical said, "and your addiction to surveillance and attention is betraying the fact that although you're the exact demographic to call yourself 'girls' girls,' your only allegiance is to your own entertainment."
She went on to point out that these internet sleuths have essentially taken every bit of the man's wife's agency over her own private life out of her hands. "Now all their friends know [he's cheating,] all their family knows… everyone that they know professionally knows… She is no longer able to extricate herself from it."
All of that for a couple that has a child who may likely be witnessing all of this, too. All of that for a couple that, for all we know, has an open marriage! The bottom line is this: People's private lives are none of anyone's business, and owning a cellphone does not entitle you to document it, nor does it entitle you to splash the faces of innocent bystanders in the background onto the internet in perpetuity, as @carolinerened's video does, in the process.
It is astonishing and disgusting that this needs to be said, but it very apparently does: Other people's lives are not your reality show. You are not entitled to commodify people's lives just because you're privy to them, and you are not doing a good deed by exposing them on a public forum.
Put your phones down, go to therapy, and stop acting like sociopaths.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.