A couple of months back, a certain Tiktok of a girl surprise visiting her long-distance boyfriend went viral. The boyfriend in question was nicknamed ‘Couch guy’. In reference to where he was seated when his girlfriend surprised him. The reason this TikTok went viral is not for the same reason it was shot. The girlfriend probably thought that it would be very heartfelt and something that she could share with the people close to her. No instead millions of people came together and accused the so-called ‘couch guy’ of cheating on her. Their reasoning for this was that he sat next to other girls on this infamous couch and that he was a bit slow in getting up and hugging his girlfriend. Everything from close-ups to behavioral science was used to fully examine this one TikTok that lasted just a couple of seconds. After all the research was done, the jury made out of millions of people who in fact do not know these two people were sure that this relationship was not one to last (Rosenblatt 2021).
Couch guy’s lament
Fast forward to December 6 and this TikTok mystery got a new update. This time from the couch guy himself. In this written piece in Slate magazine, he talks about what it was like to suddenly find yourself being cross-examined by millions of strangers and the impact that it can have on your life. This sleuthing as it is called did not just stay on the digital sphere, but it crossed over into his real life. He, his girlfriend, and their friends began to have their day-to-day lives invaded (McCoy 2021). In one TikTok someone living in the same college dorm as him slipped a note under his door asking to interview him. where one commenter commented:
“Even if this guy turned off his phone, he can’t escape the couch guy notifications,” a fact that the 37,600 users who liked it presumably celebrated too.
(McCoy 2021)
For obvious reasons, this is nothing short but horrifying. It is almost like it is a plot straight-up lifted from Black Mirror. Eventually, the hype around the couch guy investigation fell away and he was able to resume his normal life again (sort of). But for every trend that falls away, a new one comes in its place, and if one thing was certain the internet was not done sleuthing yet.
Sherlock Holmes and the adventure immediately springing to conclusions.
Another recent victim to the internet sleuthing obsession is a trans-woman called Sabrina Prater, who back in November posted a TikTok of her dancing to the song ‘Any man of mine’ by Shaina Twain. The setting for this dance was in a quite dilapidated basement, and it was exactly that factor that made this TikTok go so viral. At first it the response was more on the comedy side, mostly meant to be light-hearted but quickly becoming meaner and meaner (Dickinson 2021) .
But everything truly took a sharp turn when just a couple of weeks later, a Redditor posted on the Reddit sub: r/oddlyterrifying, a TikTok made by another creator in which he examined another of Sabrina’s videos. In this one, she was once again dancing, but this time in front of a computer screen, which flashed images of people’s faces. One image stood out, it looked like a person that was tied up, with its face obscured. And that was it, just like with couch guy millions of people began to once again investigate every single second of her entire existence. Unlike couch guy who was mostly accused of being unfaithful, Sabrina was accused of being a straight-up serial killer (Dickinson 2021). Just like with couch guy, this quickly left the digital sphere and crossed over in her real life. People wanted to report her to the police and to try and meet her in real life, this quickly began to spin out of control once again. As on TikToker Abbie Richard said that this story was like:
“watching true crime, internet sleuthing, conspiracy theories, and transphobia collide in a horrific car crash.”
(Dickinson 2021)
For all their research their never was any actual factual evidence found of anything nefarious going on with Sabrina Prater. The only horror was the one she faced.
TikTok’s true crime community
People’s interest in the mysterious and strange happenings is a tale as old as time. So is the true-crime community, the amount of content that is out there examining the creepiest of cases, from famous serial killers to un-explainable disappearances. For a long time, the true-crime community was mostly focused on old cases, but with the coming of social media like TikTok, the attention has begun to focus on the more current mysteries. For those doing the sleuthing, the activity might seem like a worthwhile endeavor. You are helping to solve something and there is a true sense of a community coming together to save the day. But unfortunately most of the time, the only thing that happens is that innocent people end up being harassed. There have been cases of the internet sleuths actually solving a case and bringing justice, but this is mostly bound to actual police cases and not weird internet videos.
If there is a takeaway from this it is: that although I think that people do participate with the best intentions, If you just get caught up in a trend, then maybe try to stay out of it. Because before you know it you become one of those nefarious strangers that you are trying so hard to stop.
Sources
Dickson, E. (2021, 2 december). All She Wanted Was to Dance. Then TikTok Spun a Conspiracy Theory That She’s a Serial Killer. Rolling Stone. Geraadpleegd op 16 december 2021, van https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/tiktok-true-crime-conspiracy-theory-
McCoy, R. (2021, 6 december). I’m the TikTok Couch Guy. Here’s What It Was Like Being Investigated on the Internet. Slate Magazine. Geraadpleegd op 16 december 2021, van https://slate.com/technology/2021/12/tiktok-couch-guy-internet-sleuths.html
Rosenblatt, K. (2021, 12 oktober). “Couch Guy” is the latest viral TikTok to show how internet sleuthing can be toxic. NBC News. Geraadpleegd op 16 december 2021, van https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/viral/couch-guy-latest-viral-tiktok-show-how-internet-sleuthing-can-n1281041
Thanks for writing on such an interesting topic! I personally don’t have TikTok, so I often miss out on such topics. To prevent anything like this happening to me, I always keep all my social media accounts on private. I would personally feel terrible if one of my posts would go viral for such reasons and I just try to prevent this as much as possible.
I think you summed it up perfectly, people on the internet often try to help with good intentions but because of the lengths these individuals go to they become toxic themselves. A similar trend on TikTok that I noticed is people making “TikTok, help me find this girl” accompanied with a picture or video of that person, to try to get in contact with them to ask them out on a date for example. The crazy thing is that this often works. I think it is a crazy idea that someone would film you because they think you are attractive, only to have thousands of people on the internet start a witch hunt to find you.
Also, I remember a similar thing happened a few years ago on YouTube. People thought that vlogger Marina Joyce was being held captive or kidnapped because she was acting ‘strange’, and some people said they saw someone with a gun (behind the camera) forcing her to make videos. Because of this internet craze, police showed up at her door multiple times. Even worse, after setting up a fanmeeting after the rumours started spreading, people were worried that this was a terrorist trap. Still to this day, people do not leave her alone with these crazy stories and don’t believe her when she says she was never held captive or went missing.
As I don’t have tiktok downloaded, I didn’t know this was a trend! After watching the video myself, I find the “couch guy” trend to be almost terrifying. It seems like people are finding any excuse to cancel people, it’s like a modern day witch hunting 🙁 Even if it is not as extreme as this trend, I have seen some tiktok videos on instagram reels or youtube of documenting what people are wearing on the street (like “what are people from New York fashion school are wearing?” videos, for example), and I found it pretty uncomfortable because most of these people didn’t know that they were being filmed. I think tiktok invades people’s privacy even amongst other social media, and regulations to protects people’s privacy needs to be formed as soon as possible.
This is such a weird thing to have happened, especially with couch guy in mind. It’s such an invasion of privacy to be so overinvested into the business of others to the point of making conclusions on their personal lives. It’s so scary to think that one single video of yourself can lead to people finding out where you live, who you exactly are, and what they think is “wrong” with you or your relations.
The first word that springs to mind reading your post is terrifying. This really could happen to anyone who’s on the internet and once it happens, it spins out of control so fast. As you said, many people are acting with the best intentions but I also can’t help but feel they get a kick out of the excitement of it all which seems disturbing. I’m not sure how it can happen but more needs to be done to prevent innocent people experience this level of invasion of privacy.