The Coldplay Incident: A Lesson in Privacy - Resilience & Relationships (R&R) - Stephanie Olson and Rebecca Saunders

The conversation examines the implications of a viral incident involving a CEO and a public display of affection at a Coldplay concert, sparking discussions on privacy, social media ethics, public apologies, and the human impact of viral content. The hosts reflect on the consequences of public actions, the nature of accountability, and the role of humor in navigating uncomfortable situations, ultimately emphasizing the importance of empathy in the age of social media.

takeaways

• The incident highlights the blurred lines between public and private life in the age of social media.
• Public apologies often come after being caught, raising questions about sincerity.
• Social media can amplify personal mistakes, affecting not just individuals but their families and companies.
• Humor can be a natural response to awkward situations, but it can also be insensitive.
• The consequences of actions can extend beyond the individual to their professional life.
• Privacy is increasingly difficult to maintain in a world where everyone has a camera.
• Viral content can dehumanize individuals, reducing them to entertainment.
• Empathy is crucial when discussing the lives of those affected by viral incidents.
• The conversation about social media ethics is complex and multifaceted.
• Understanding the human element behind viral stories is essential for meaningful dialogue.

Chapters

00:00
Introduction to the Viral Incident

03:13
The Impact of Social Media on Privacy

06:15
Public Apologies and Accountability

07:56
The Ethics of Sharing Personal Moments

11:06
The Role of Humor in Awkward Situations

13:42
Navigating Professional Consequences

16:52
The Dangers of Dehumanization on Social Media

19:52
The Responsibility of Posting About Others

22:55
The Intersection of Personal and Professional Life

26:04
Conclusion and Reflection on Social Media Use

30:15
R&R Outro.mp4

Transcript

Unknown: 0:18

You hello and welcome to resilience and relationships R and R, where we do real talk with real people, is that what our tag is Real Talk something like that. I don't know. Anyway, I'm Stephanie Olson, and I'm here with Rebecca Saunders, who Okay, so we have an interesting thing to talk about today, and I'm, I don't know it just it was a big deal, and it kind of concerned me when I saw this. But yesterday, my sister sent me a clip, and she sent it with just like, you know, emoji eyes, like, oh my gosh, and, you know, turn your sound on, and then that's what we, I mean, we'll, we'll watch movies and then talk about them afterwards, or have discussions about things we absolutely agree on or absolutely disagree on, or whatever. But she sent this to me, and it was a video. So for those of you who have not seen it, it is the Coldplay video. So it's a video of, apparently, what Coldplay does or did in this concert was they do what I don't know it's like a kiss cam only with this one. What they were doing is they were finding people, and then the Coldplay guy, I don't know his name, whatever, Coldplay lead singer, yes, would create a song about them and just sing it right then. And so there was video of them wrapping up with one couple, and then they moved to this couple, and it was a man, kind of with his arms around this woman. They were in what was clearly a corporate box. So it was like a corporate thing they were at, and he was putting his arms around her like you would a romantic, very intimate, and they were listening to the songs, and all of a sudden the cam goes on them, and they look up and see it. The woman ducks down and the or the woman turns around like covers her face, turns around, the guy ducks down and the Coldplay guy says, either they are having an affair or they're very shy. Well, what happened was, it turns out that this guy is the CEO of a tech company called astronomer, and she was, and I say was, because I don't know what happened next. I would assume is, is the chief people officer, the head of HR, and then next to her in the cam was one of her staff members. Okay, so we find all this, but she was the head of HR until just now, ironic. Yes, little bit, yeah, I a little ironic. So the first person who posted this, who knows if they, I mean, obviously they were at the concert. They saw it happening. They were obviously videoing the Kiss Cam things. Who knows. And then they posted it. Now what has and I want to talk about that piece. But what has happened since then is that it came out, that this is who it was, and it went viral. I mean, not just wildfire, not just like a little viral. I mean, everybody was talking about this, and it was being posted everywhere, on Tiktok, on Instagram, all over the place, and it my sister had the foresight early on, because we're diggers and researchers, whatever, she went to his LinkedIn immediately. And on his LinkedIn, on a post that he had just posted, there were comments all over and people were commenting, people were making jokes, people were just whatever. And finally they locked down his LinkedIn like it was gone, but the company's LinkedIn was also locked down so nobody could post. Post on that. And then if you went to the company website, which I did, you couldn't click on anybody's they were all on there, but you couldn't click on anybody's email. And so it I'm glad they were overwhelmed with responses about this. Oh my gosh, overwhelmed. But the person I could not stop thinking about was his wife and kids, or the people I could not stop thinking about was thinking on how fast that was posted. That could have been the way she found out about everything. I am sure that's how she found out, because after her oh my gosh, and, you know, I think about my world, which is much smaller than that, but even when you know we're on the news or something, or if there is, Hey, I saw your pocket, I am constantly getting people sending me the story or texting me, Oh, I saw this. I'm sure her phone was blowing up. I'm sure her, I mean, I can't even imagine, cannot even imagine, and I don't know anything about his family life, but I I think he has kids, because I think he mentioned I was gonna ask, I don't know, but if he has kids, I mean, surely this is getting back to them too. Yeah, yep. Depending on their ages, they may have friends with phones that have seen the video. Yeah, it, it's, it's ridiculous. So I want to talk about that a little bit, and about social media, and I want to talk about his response, and just, I don't know, you know, is social media. Do should we expect privacy? Should we expect anything and and if we are putting things out there, or not, even if we are putting things out there, if other people are putting things out there, what can we expect? And what should we expect? So I want to read your questions. Yes, yes. Well, you know, thank you. So I want to share this statement from CEO Andy Byron, and I'm just going to read it especially for people who aren't able to view this or just listening, but this is what it says. I want to acknowledge the moment that's been circling online, and the disappointment it's caused what was supposed to be a night of music and joy turned into a deeply personal mistake playing out on a very public stage. I do want to come back to that statement right there. I want to sincerely say, oh, a lot to say, yes. I want to sincerely apologize to my wife, my family and the team at astronomer, astronomer, yes, astronomer, you deserve better for me as a partner, as a father, okay, so he does have kids. And as a leader, this is not who I want to be or how I want to represent, represent the company I helped build. So he's obviously a founder of some sort so represent the company I helped build. I'm taking time to reflect, to take accountability and to figure out the next steps, personally and professionally, I ask for privacy as I navigate that process, I also want to express how troubling it is that what should have been a private moment became public without my consent. I respect artists and entertainers, but I hope we can all think more deeply about the impact of turning someone else's life into a spectacle. As a friend once sang, lights will guide you home and ignite your bones, and I will try to fix you. I don't, I don't even get that ending, but the lyric from a song, yeah, one of their songs. So what a cold plays songs, see, I don't know. Cole, oh yeah, okay, go ahead. I have so many thoughts. Yeah, even from the first line and oh my goodness, how do you I could just talk all day. So interrupt me if you want, but okay, I think it is perfectly normal and reasonable to desire privacy. Absolutely. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. However, I am always very skeptical of public apologies that come right after you've been caught, because if this is not what you intended to do, then why did you do it? Yes, yes, well, and that the first line, which was this was supposed to be. A private night of joy and music. Okay? Just right there that night as the apology, no one was close enough about this, right? 100% now, if you look at the Okay, so we're going to talk about this as social media, you know, eventually, but having an affair, I'm gonna go on the record, was saying is wrong, right? It's wrong like we can all agree, not, okay? Well, you and I can I'm sure there are people out there who would challenge that, or would say it's none of our business. How dare we even make that inference? But I'm going to go on the record saying it's wrong between us, right and a few other people, I'm guessing. So what was supposed to be a private night of joy and music already right there? That bothers me, because what we know is that at least one coworker or employee or whatever is in the room, right? And if it's a box for employers, or, you know, if it's a if it's a box that astronomer bought, or he bought, or whatever the people he brought to that event know he's having an affair. Clearly, the looks of everything this is not the first night they have disclosed feelings for one another that that was very intimate. I don't think my husband has ever held me like that at a concert. You know it's like, I don't know. I think I would be uncomfortable even in a relationship. That's a lot of PDA for me. I know. Well, yeah, exactly. So now should you necessarily be I don't know. Okay, so private. Yeah, I think that's drawing from this. It's not new. It's not new. Other people know it's not that private, obviously, right? Because we know other people knew about it. What? What he was saying, however, is that nobody was going to post it on social media. That's essentially what he was saying, private, private meaning my wife doesn't know my family doesn't know my life to know this is happening exactly so I I think we are all aware, though, or we should be that in today's day and age, if you are outside, and frankly, half the time, if you're inside, like right now, you know we're online. What? Nothing's private anymore. You can't count on it. You can walk down a street, you can go into a store. You're being recorded. So I don't know well, and I think that that kind of comes back to the integrity piece, right? Like, I believe that you should be willing to own up to anything you do at any moment. Yeah, and yes, we all have bad days. I'm not saying that no one's ever made mistakes. I've made plenty. Yeah, we all have like that could get brought up again, and that's, that's just life, and with or without social media, someone may find out about the thing that you're doing. And that's, I think social media accelerates that great Correct, correct if you're going to do something or say something, be prepared that you might have to answer for that exactly. And I heard somebody talking about something totally different yesterday, but he was making the comment that back in the day, people used to like if you told something about somebody behind their back, you know, you you spread gossip or rumor or whatever, it would eventually get back to that person. It would take a long time, but then it would be like, Hey, I'm meeting you at the playground at three o'clock, you know. And you could essentially escape or move away from your bad reputation, because social media wasn't around to follow you. If you you know if I do something in Nebraska and then I moved to California, nobody I can reinvent myself. Nobody knows in California what I did in Nebraska. But with social media, that's not the case anymore. Everything we do is on display, and we can't leave, leave it okay. So, so one of the things that so okay was supposed to be a night of music and joy. Okay? He didn't say, he didn't say a pride. At night of music and joy. He just said, what was supposed to be a night of music and joy turned into a deeply personal mistake. No, it already was a mistake, right? The mistake is that people know not my actual actions, right? And a mistake is like, oh my gosh, I grabbed two different shoes, right? That's a mistake. I grabbed a black and brown pair. A mistake is not, oh my gosh, I accidentally fell into this affair with somebody. Oops. That sucks that that just happened. You know, that's not a mistake. Even an argument could be made of like there was one action that was inappropriate with the person, that's a mistake, okay? Like, there's an argument to be made there, right? Something ongoing, right? I You can't call that a mistake. I don't want a mistake, right? Exactly, okay, so then what he says that bothers me is, I also want to express how troubling it is that what should have been a private moment became public without my consent. So talk about that. I'm curious what your thoughts are. Seeing feelings there. I really do, because that statement by itself, without the context of what's happened. Okay, I see it. I mean, I I look back at things that even like my mom, well meaning, has posted on Facebook when I was a kid, I'm like, Oh, that's so embarrassing, you know? Yeah, sure. So I get it however. We're talking about something that was to an extent under his control, not in that it was posted, but in that you are in a public place, doing things that you know that other people are witnessing. I mean, you you know the world we live in. You know that there are cameras everywhere, especially at an event like this, right? So I just don't know that there really was a true reason to have an expectation of privacy there i i agree. I agree. And again, anybody could have because my guess is, and I'm just speculating, I have no idea if this is true or not, but my guess is that there were photos taken within the box. They were sharing. You know, there were they were having fun, they were together as a group. And that's what happens. And if that happened, there's really no difference than somebody randomly in the crowd taking a photo or video of the cam thing, and somebody taking a photo and sharing it now the original poster of this, so the person who originally posted it. Do we know who that is? I don't know who that is. No, no, but they knew what they were posting when they posted it. I mean, let's be real. Good intentions. There they're sitting. No, they wanted a viral video. They wanted to show what was going on, because it was evident that these people were probably having an affair. I think they probably just lucked out. I mean, they could have, who knows it could have been an who knows who it was, and if you know that, I mean, there's so much speculation there. But regardless, they knew what they were doing. To just remind everyone we don't know any of these people. No right saying what we think. Yes, this is totally opinion, totally speculation, and just being an observer from the viral videos. And that's part of the reason we're not posting the video itself, because we don't want to contribute to the you know what went viral. But we want to talk about just yeah, anyway, but they knew what they were doing, and that, I don't think is very ethical. I don't need Yeah, posting something about right? That's not cool, but not like to the person who originally posted it with the intention of it probably going viral. I'm assuming that's their intention, right? You know, I, I don't think that there was any way to couch that that makes it a great idea. Mean, you're hurting his family. You're hurting the company. People that have nothing to do with what this decision was have not been negatively affected. And I That's unfortunate. It is very unfortunate. It's very unfortunate. And we know that happens all the time. And then, of course, the people that continued to make it viral. People were doing exactly the same thing and and now, you know, some of those viral videos have information on them. Now I know exactly who it is. Now I know what's, you know, and there's it just added to the fire. The other thing that happened though, that I thought was really sad. And it's kind of a commentary on social media and our world right now, because when I saw that, I did not laugh. I was so sad. I mean, and my first thought was for his wife. That was my first thought, and and his kids, now that we know he has kids, and thinking, oh my gosh, how would you feel if that were you be horrible. But the other thing that I noticed, there were a ton of jokes about this all over the place, and that, right? And we have to remember that when we post things on social media, we're dealing with real people and real lives. And I think one of the things social media has done, and again, I'm a huge fan of social media in my own I mean, I use it, we use it, obviously going to be using it with this podcast or YouTube. I mean, right, exactly. So it's not social media in and of itself, but social media has allowed us to really be able to bully or to look at people as fodder for us, as entertainment, interactions, yeah, and then add it is really bad. And so when you think about so we come from the perspective of everyone has an intrinsic value that cannot be changed, and we really do live that when we do this on social media, we are literally dehumanizing human beings when we when we do some of The things I see politically or with movie stars or what you know people we consider public personas, because we are so far removed from it, that's not somebody we know personally, or that's not somebody we can connect with it. It always does seem like this. It's it's distant for us. And so we can joke about these people. We can make fun of them. We can do memes about them, and oh, but we forget those are real people and with families, real people whose lives have been devastated by this. And I mean, I even think of the CEO, while I don't condone his actions in the slightest. I mean, I cannot stand cheating. I think it's horrid. But like you said, I mean, back in the day, you could move away, you can get away from his reputation. I don't know what this is going to do for him long term, because thinking, like professionally, you've got this attached to your name now, and even just, you know, family life, friends, it doesn't matter where they go, this is going to follow them, and that's for him, too. Because, I mean, he really could have some heart change here and genuinely apologize and want to do better, and this is still attached to him. Yeah, exactly. You know, the other thing that's really interesting. I'll be interested to see what the company does and what happens going forward. Everybody. It's Stephanie Olson here, and I just wanted to pop in with a quick edit, because the CEO of astronomer did step down and resigned the next day. So that is what happened? Because, should someone be fired for having an affair? Well, I would suppose that depends on your job. You know, if you're a pastor of a church, probably if you've signed a code of conduct that says you can't do something like that in your personal life, absolutely, you know, in our work, we have a code of conduct, but certainly that would not be actionable, that you have a personal life. I mean, certainly that would not be actionable, but once it was posted and again, this wasn't his decision, but once it was posted, it now affected the company. So publicity to his company, exactly. So what do you do then? Like, what are your thoughts? Such a tough spot, because I do believe. And giving people grace. And I believe that, no, we've all made mistakes. Some are just more public than others, and so you're right. I mean, there are some jobs that I definitely agree with you. You know, if you're, if you're a marriage counselor and you're spouse, please don't be a marriage counselor anymore like that. Rethink some of the things you're doing. All right? Sometimes your personal life does really play into what you do professionally, yeah? But other times it doesn't, and it's so tricky because I can see both sides. Yeah, I can see for him that maybe he is, I don't know anything about his professional life, but maybe he's great at what he does. And sure, he's a billionaire, he's probably pretty good at what he does, yeah? But I can also see the other side in the company of like, hey, you know people, people purchase and get involved with companies based on if they can feel a connection to them. And it's not always based off of the product that they have, right, right? Oftentimes, it's based off of the people. And so I totally understand the company side too. Of hey, people do not want to be associated with us because of this. We need to distance ourselves from this action, right? So tricky. Yeah, it really is. So the other question I had, and I said this to my sister, should have just had my sister join us, but one of the things I said to her was it, it really bothered me. So the woman next to them in the video was laughing the whole time it happened. Oh that. Oh my god. And she apparently, according to what I've heard, was a staff member of the woman, so she worked for a while. Yes, yes. Rumor also has it she just got a promotion. But I don't know if that's true or not. I'm not sure, but I said that kind of made me sick that she was laughing about it, and my sister said this, and I really, actually appreciated her saying this. Well, in all fairness, we don't know how we would respond if we were in her shoes and comfortable laughter, but I don't know how it to do with this. Yes, when we are in a in a situation where we're nervous, or where, oh my gosh, and, and some people do, that's the response is to laugh, and there's a nervous laughter. Is that right? Oh my goodness. It's so hard when I'm getting on to her, because she's just like, cracking up sometimes, and I know she doesn't mean it. It's just like, Oh crap. I know I messed up. Yes. It's like, Oh, yeah. So there are people that do that. I know exactly now at the well, I don't know, who knows if she's friends with these people. If she's just, Hey, I just work for them. It's none of my business. I Who knows but, but I do think that's fair, that I think we do make judgments about things or people that we see. And it's really easy to be the Monday morning quarterback and say, Well, I would never respond like that, when, in fact, we really don't know until it's you, yeah, it's so hard. And then also people said, well, if they would have just played it cool, nobody would have known, because nobody would have made it viral. I'm sure they have friends, you would think, but yeah, that would see that say, oh, what's going on there? Well, and the other thing is, we have a natural response to situations like our natural response. I mean, it's you go into fight or flight, right? Regardless of whether it's a bear or something or a camera. And so I think again, we don't know how we would behave, but So having said all that, let's unless you want to say any more about the cold place, situation itself, I want to talk about and we may make this a two parter, Because now I want to have the conversation about social media and and what is, what is appropriate, what's not, what should we watch out for? What are the things that we I don't know. It's just, I think that was a shining light that was a shining light on what can happen. You know, I, I think this conversation is twofold, right? Because it's what what might other people post, versus what might you post? And those might not be the same things, but there's definitely things to. Consider everybody jumping in with edit number two. Join us next week for part two of this podcast. We're going to continue the conversation with social media and privacy. You.