Viewpoint Meet the villain of the moment, the rich tech bro

The CEO caught cheating in public with his employee at a Coldplay concert has spawned hilarious memes

- John Lui

"Coldplaygate" has everything we love about internet drama. It is painful for the people involved, but not tragic. It records a moment of comeuppance, the part in the show when justice rolls up to slap cheaters in the face. And it is all happening to the villain of the hour: the wealthy tech bro.

As more details about the conscious uncoupling captured on British rock band Coldplay's concert "kiss cam" on July 16 emerged on social media, the show got juicier.

The pair, married to other people, gave us a moment of sitcom pleasure. There was the slow realisation that they were on camera, followed by the cartoon scramble to hide their face or hunch over, like three-year-olds who believe that if they can't see us, we can't see them.

A few hours later came the revelations that would spawn a thousand memes.

The man is Mr Andy Byron, chief executive of US tech firm Astronomer. The woman he was caught canoodling with on the jumbotron is Ms Kristin Cabot, his company's chief people officer, whose job is to tell employees not to do what they are doing.

In any event, their moment of infamy proved a more valuable teaching tool than a hundred PowerPoint slides.