What happened next: the Coldplay kiss cam couple

On 16 July 2025, Andy Byron and Kristin Cabot went to a Coldplay concert in Boston. You know this, I know this, my pop-culture-averse neighbour Norma knows this. Millions of people around the world are intimately acquainted with what happened that fateful day: the co-workers were caught cuddling and then jumping apart in horror on Coldplay’s kiss cam. Attention spans are short and fresh memes are minted daily. Unfortunately for Byron and Cabot, this wasn’t just another meme; the video of their shocked reaction contained all the ingredients of a viral moment with unusual staying power. Andy Byron and Kristin Cabot were caught on camera in July.Composite: TikTok Even Strictly got in on the act.Photograph: Youtube First, there was the format: the clip - uploaded on social media by a fellow concert-goer - was only a few seconds long and easy to recreate. Then there were the protagonists: Byron was the married CEO of software company Astronomer and Cabot was the head of HR. Inequality is at record levels and eat-the-rich narratives are everywhere; everyone loves the chance to hate on wealthy tech types. While Byron and Cabot presumably did a lot of explaining in private after the concert, their moment of shame took on a very public life. Every baseball team in the US seemed to have a bash at re-enacting the moment on stadium big screens. The first high-profile parody was by the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team’s mascot, the Phillie Phanatic, who mocked the pair’s panicked reaction on the JumboTron at Citizens Bank Park. The stadium also played an audio clip of Coldplay’s Chris Martin’s reaction: “Uh-oh, what? Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy.” On TV, the Late Show host, Stephen Colbert, incorporated Donald Trump into the meme. In May, you might remember, CBS announced that Colbert’s show was getting cancelled: weirdly, this news came only a few days after the late-night host criticised the network’s parent company, Paramount, for settling a lawsuit with Donald Trump for $16m (£12m). Colbert called the settlement a “big fat bribe”. On 21 July, the first show after the cancellation was announced, Colbert parodied the Coldplay moment with a cartoon of Trump shiftily hugging the Paramount logo from behind. Strictly Come Dancing also got a dig in during an October broadcast when host Claudia Winkleman cosied up to the show’s conductor, Dave Arch, even though it had been a whole three months since the moment went viral (a thousand years in internet time). It wasn’t just sports teams and TV stars piling in: if there’s a viral moment, you can bet there’s a brand desperate to jump on it. The German arm of language learning app Duolingo posted a guide on Instagram describing what to do when you’re “caught in 4K but you’re fluent in denial”. Ikea Singapore posted a photo of two stuffed animals cuddling with the headline “HR approved”. Nando’s Australia ran a promo for a free side dish with your main meal, billed as “a...

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