In these polarized times, it’s always fascinating to me when something happens that seemingly unites all of America.
For example, when “Tiger King” came out on Netflix in March of 2020 it seemed everyone in the country watched it because it was a reprieve from the horrible news about COVID. On the more wholesome end of the spectrum, Pokemon Go came out in the summer of 2016 and took the world by storm. Everywhere you went, families were out walking together, talking to strangers, and distractedly wandering into traffic. It was a beautiful time.
Our current uniting cultural moment, of course, is the Astronomer CEO getting caught cheating on his wife at the Coldplay concert.
If you somehow missed it, last week at a Coldplay concert in Massachusetts, a “Kiss Cam” landed on a silver-haired gentleman canoodling with a lady. When they realized they were being broadcast on the big screen, the lady turned away and hid her face while the guy crouched to the ground and crawled out of frame.
The internet quickly discovered that the gentleman in question was the CEO of a software company called Astronomer, the lady was the head of Astronomer’s Human Resources Department, they are both married, and it ain’t to each other.
The incident quickly went viral nationwide. Everyone was talking about it. Parodies began popping up, including my personal favorite in which the Phillie Phanatic got caught on the Kiss Cam at a Phillies game cuddling with a second bewigged Phanatic.
The public scrutiny became so severe that the the dude ended up stepping down as CEO of Astronomer. This struck me as a slight overreaction since cheating on your wife doesn’t necessarily mean you’re bad at your job (for example, JFK was one of our finest presidents). However, the people were out for blood and the company had to do something.
Why did this incident go viral? Why were so many people so deeply invested? Is it just that we all love tawdry drama?
I think there’s more to it. I think that if the couple caught on the Kiss Cam had been a couple of working stiffs, this whole story would have been largely ignored.
Put simply, I think the American people are just absolutely starved to see a wealthy man experience a consequence.
Our politicians line their pockets with corporate money and flagrantly break the law, and they don’t even get a slap on the wrist. Elon Musk was allowed to dismantle key elements of our government just because he’s a multi-billionaire. P. Diddy was cleared of sex trafficking charges.
And then there’s President Donald Trump, who has seemingly broken every law of God and man and been rewarded for it. Sure, some of his most fervent supporters are finally starting to question Trump’s 15-year friendship with our nation’s most notorious child sex trafficker. Even so, it’s hard to believe that Trump’s ever going to experience the consequences of his actions. It’s never happened before; why should it happen now?
Of course, regular folks like you and me experience nothing but consequences. We even get the luxury of experiencing the consequences of other people’s actions (so long, Social Security and Medicaid!). Against that backdrop, it’s a little easier to understand why a large chunk of America laughs uproariously when a multi-millionaire CEO ruins his marriage through his own hubris — or even why people might laugh when a bunch of billionaires hop in a home-made submarine that promptly implodes.
The funny thing is that according to online sources, the former CEO of Astronomer is estimated to have a net worth of between $20 and $70 million. Even though I can’t begin to imagine having that kind of money, from the perspective of someone like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the Astronomer guy and I are both penniless hobos. Bezos is worth about $220 billion; if the Astronomer CEO is worth $70 million, that represents just 0.032 percent of Bezos’ overall wealth. Bezos spent this guy’s net worth just on his recent wedding.
Regardless, it’s easy to laugh when a wealthy man experiences a consequence. Fun, too! Still, I can’t help but feel we should cut this guy some slack. Given what we’ve all learned recently about the preferences of the ultra-rich, he should probably be commended for cheating on his wife with a consenting adult woman his own age.
