“They’ve just been Coldplayed” .”
“Uh oh. Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy.” Commented Chris Martinthe Coldplay frontman, during a concert at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, when the Jumbotron camera zoomed in on a couple in the crowd. The woman quickly turned her back away, and the man ducked out of sight behind a barrier as if the devil himself had spotted him. The terrifying faces of the couple were worthy of another iconic painting, The Scream. The internet and social media are blowing up, as someone posted on X, “ Shoutout to Coldplay for bringing the whole internet together for one day”. A simple Google search for “Coldplay Concert Couple” or Coldplay CEO yields over 91 million hits.
But when you add a social value to the search, Coldplay Concert ‘Cheating”, or “Married” the results went down to 42M, and 28M consecutively; most people were only interested in the spectacle and not interested in the cheating and the breaking up of families. Millions of Memes and videos reenacting the Coldplay affair, depicting other couples from Clinton and Monica, Obama and his alleged girlfriend, Trump, coupled with Epstein, Putin, and Netanyahu, to celebrities and sports figures. “Coldplay hasn’t made a single in years; last night, they made two” posted Eric Matheny on X, even NY sanitation department got in the trash act, posted on X “ … Thinking about doing something naughty, like dumping trash in the City? We’ve got video cameras all over. We WILL catch you – and you will pay the price” posting pics of violators caught dumbing trash juxtaposition to the pic of the Coldplay terrifying couple face.” Dumbing trash, dumbing wives, marriages, what is the difference!! But the question is, why the Coldplay Concert affair was the spectacle that unified America to the point it became a new social condition, as US Today describes it: “They’ve just been Coldplayed” . According to PR league table of which countries cheat the most, the U.S. comes in first place, with a staggering 71% of people surveyed admitting to cheating where Texas, Alabama, and Nebraska are the top states for infidelity, with the most cheaters. The French sociologist and cultural theorist, Jean Baudrillard, developed the concept of hyperreality, where we live in a world saturated with simulations and images that have lost their connection to original reality, to the point we can’t distinguish between the two. The hyperreality creates a spectacle, a misrepresentation of reality; it covers it softens, sanitizes it, trims the rough edges, feeds us food with no seeds, no sodium, no GMO, no fat, no fibers, no sodium, no salt, and no sugar! We fall victim to the digital age and the logic of AI and algorithms, an age with no conviction, values, feelings, or beliefs; a society values materials where we, as Rispin Sartwell wrote in the Times, find beauty in Maximum discount at Walmart. Coldplay went on with their tour, suddenly becoming the only game in town. Hundreds of Thousands flocked to their concerts, and millions on the internet tried to capture the Coldplay moment to get their 15 seconds of fame. The irony of all this, Coldplay’s lead singer Chris Martin later addressed the crowd in another concert with a message of unity. He welcomed fans from “Palestine, from Israel, wherever you came from,” and praised the audience for existing together “without any violence,” suggesting that “conflicts… are overcomable by the power of love.” This message of love is a good PR campaign message, but lots of people quick to point out Coldplay singer equates the oppressed with the oppressor, where no amount of love could stop the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians that have been going on for over two years.. Coldplay is lecturing us about peace and love; regardless of who you are, a cheater, a killer, all are welcome, as long as you pay the $400 ticket. I couldn’t help it make the comparison between Coldplay’s affair to another concert for the British punk rock star Bob Vylan, where he didn’t turn his Jumbotron camera on the affair of a cheating couple, but on the apartheid Israel genocide affair in Gaza, chanting “Death, death to the IDF” during his performance at Glastonbury. This didn’t bring him fame or internet memes, but police investigation, banning visas, cancelling future concerts, and being dropped by agents and the musical industry. One more thing, a simple Google search for Bob Vylan “death death to the IDF”, yielded only 800,000 hits; people moved on to another hyper affair.
Ahmed Tharwat
Host and Producer of Arab American TV
BelAhdan
Working on the film documentary
The Coptic Grave
Minnetonka
612-250-6567
