The real scandal wasn't the 'affair'. It was what came after.

When John Lennon penned the lyrics to Imagine, his vision of a world united beyond creed or religion, it's safe to say he never could've dreamed that it would be another British crooner, still yet to be born, who would finally achieve that 'brotherhood of man'.

When Coldplay's Chris Martin called out a middle-aged couple canoodling in the crowd of his concert, caught on the jumbotron in an alleged extramarital embrace, he achieved what politicians and visionaries before him had failed to do.

The entire internet collectively embraced the viral moment for what it was: fresh, hot schadenfreude: an emotion that, in 2025, is easily more unifying than either love or hate. 

In a matter of moments, online sleuths had not only discovered the identity of the couple in question (and by default, the identities of their families), but the memes had also started flowing. And flowing. And flowing. 

Watch: The moment the 'affair' was captured at the Coldplay concert. Post continues below.

In less than 24 hours, footage of the incident had been viewed across various platforms over 50 million times. 

The man is believed to be married Astronomer CEO Andy Byron, and the woman in his arms is believed to be the tech firm's chief people officer, Kristin Cabot — notably not Byron's wife (who, reportedly, swiftly deleted her Facebook profile once the news broke).

It's not the first time a moment has united the internet in meme-ified zeal: there are perhaps a few golden times per year when a story or event sparks a reaction as widespread.

Will Smith's infamous Oscars slap, for example. 

Catherine, Princess of Wales' photoshopped Mother's Day image. 

Or the time Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine had messages leaked — and the content was more cringeworthy than anyone could have imagined.

And sure, the spectacle underpinning each of these examples is irresistible. 

In the case of the couple, believed to be a wealthy CEO and his employee, the tropes all but write themselves. 

But our urge to participate in these communal public festivals of scandal goes deeper than the urge to watch a train-wreck in real time.

And while marketing executives and ad producers spend millions trying to manufacture the content that has this kind of instant virality, the truth behind what these moments have in common is the opposite: it's their authenticity. 

In a world where we are served a steady diet of content increasingly manufactured to our specific tastes, a moment when the mask slips and the fourth wall is broken is a rare commodity indeed. 

We are stuffed to the beak like foie gras geese when it comes to content, but we're starved of authenticity. 

The algorithm twists our opinions, influencers spruik snake oil they've never taken, and even so-called 'reality' television is scripted — each consecutive season in an effort to distil and intensify the drama that worked in the season before it. 

That politicians lie is no longer an accusation but an accepted fact, the skill and frequency with which they do so directly proportional to their success.

Bots are seeding stories at the behest of superstars embroiled in public feuds, billionaires are buying newspapers, actors are staging entire relationships in the pursuit of guerilla film marketing.

And this airbrushed simulation of reality isn't just in our news and on our screens: AI is writing our break-up texts, FaceTune is changing our profile pictures, and we're increasingly isolated from the kind of deep interpersonal connections that used to protect us from all this existential dread.

So when an unplanned, intensely human moment like two people being busted in the throes of an alleged affair on the world stage comes along, the shattering of a fake veneer is addictive.

Not only have we been privy to a private reality, but so have the people that the lie was hurting. 

Authenticity is like an orgasm — hard to describe when it's missing, but you'll know as soon as you experience it.  

We want to hold onto the shared moment of recognition. It is what keeps us churning out content and memes and reaction videos in a bid to keep that feeling alive — to participate in a unifying acknowledgement that we can still spot the real deal when we see it. 

There's a sense that, in an unjust world, a tiny bit of truth won out, like a trickle of water flowing in a dry creekbed in the desert.

And just like one tiny flowing waterway in the desert will attract every animal in the region, we flock to moments like these as if we're running towards an oasis. 

Or in this case, a Coldplay.

Feature: Supplied/TikTok/instaagraace.