Sorry You Went Viral

The online hunt to find an AWOL dad - and a huge row over a pub sign

• Tim Gatt and Hannah Vaughan Jones • Season 1 • Episode 31

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On this week's show:

On What It's Like To Go Viral: The Facebook post by a mum of 4, Ashley McGuire, trying to find her husband who ghosted her family - and the internet sluths and his exes who helped to track him down

In What's Gone Viral:
- The backlash from followers to food reviewer @EatingWithTod for his McDonald's collab

- The huge reaction to a pub sign that boasted of being 'dog friendly and child free'

- A TikTok ' Day in the Life' from content creator Chloe Williams that attracted nasty comments for no reason

- The lip syncing TikTok from 23 year old Aussie Leah Halton that's looking like it could be the most liked post on the app 

- Why people are loving spotting the differences between UK and US homes, pointed out by Helene Sua/@HeleneInBetween

The Timeline Cleanser is the inspiring content from  The Hull Boy, Marcus Skeet, @thehullboy who is running a mile a day to fundraise for mental health charities - despite the negative comments.

Watch the viral posts featured in the show:

McDonalds sponsorship backlash: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5iWRfFoCWE/?igsh=MWs0NG53a2ppYzZxcA==

Pub sign row: https://twitter.com/hifromkyle/status/1779548610528415809?s=46

Day in the life TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@looooooooch/video/7332342275151760642

Is this set to be the most liked TikTok ever: https://www.tiktok.com/@looooooooch/video/7332342275151760642

UK v US homes: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGeHYKnP6/

The interview on Jam’n 94.5FM in Boston with the mum of 4 appealing to find an AWOL dad: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1815684968934796

The Hull Boy's post that was seen 4 million times: https://twitter.com/Thehullboy1/status/1776537347804332359

And his GoFundMe page:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/marcuss-fund-for-mind-namh?

Seen a story we should cover? Get in touch with us!

Email: sorryyouwentviral@gmail.com
Twitter: Twitter.com/SorryUWentViral
Instagram: Instagram.com/SorryYouWentViral
TikTok: TikTok.com/@SorryYouWentViral

Hello and welcome to Sorry You Went Viral, the podcast all about the stories that have been really setting social media alight recently, and of course, the human side to these popular tales as well. My name's Hannah. And I'm Tim. And coming up on

today's show:

The dad who ghosted his family and then his wife's plea for divorce that went international. How a pub sign divided the internet. And are we about to get the most liked TikTok ever? All that coming up on the show. Now this content creator suffered something of a big backlash when he made some sponsored content with McDonald's. Take a look. So that was @EatingWithTod or Toby Inskip, who's got a really big following already on social media. He reviews mostly kind of small businesses and new foods and stuff like that, just to really try and sort of promote the smaller businesses out there as well. And obviously, what we've just seen there from that particular ad, that promotional content was McDonald's. So, arguably, they don't really need the promotion from Toby, but there we go. The backlash that this guy has received from doing this gig with McDonald's has been huge because a lot of people think he's just been a"sellout" and that"How much did they have to pay you to do this?""Oh, I used to love your stuff until you did all that." And it got a bit nasty, didn't it? Yeah. As you said, people very opposed to it, and it's really tricky. He's a full time content creator and understand that he's got to pay the bills. And lots of content creators do brand partnerships. But I think with this one, I think people who followed him, as you said, really love how he finds these amazing meals, food concoctions, being made by these pretty normal, small businesses, but they weren't happy with this. And I recently had a McDonald's burger, and I'll be honest, it left me a bit kind of disappointed. And to kind of lord it up as an amazing food is a bit pushing it, to be honest. It's a tough one because, as you say, this is his full time gig and fair play to him for trying to make a buck out of it all and everything. But surely part of his kind of thing, his shtick, is that people trust him, as in, they trust his opinions. So, "Great, I'll travel to that place to actually go and get that random meal from that small business." And, as you say, if the burger itself from McDonald's isn't even that good, then he's going to lose a lot of followers because people just won't find him trustworthy. I did like his response, though, to all of this because he was like, "Mixed comments on my latest post." And then he said,"Rest assured, I'm still going to kind of be reviewing independent businesses and the like." I love the way he signs

off at the end of it:

"There will be some brand deals I feature as my page evolves", I think he means there,"Some you may love, some you may not. I hear you, but please forget my journey if you want to tell me to die after posting a burger." And Toby, I'm with you a bit on that one. I think it's been slightly overblown and hopefully, hopefully he gets back to just promoting the little guy again. But we watch this space on that one. Talk about dividing the internet, again. This week, this tweet of a guy outside a pub in St. Albans has literally blown up. This is Kyle. If you're watching on the video, a guy called Kyle, who's pointing at a handwritten sign in

a pub, outside a pub that says:

"Dog friendly, child free." And then Kyle, his Twitter handle's @HiFromKyle, just

posted it with the words:

"Found my new local." This went crazy on Twitter and elsewhere. 74 million views it was at the last time I looked. And some love this. People who loved dogs in pubs, who hated children running around causing mischief in pubs. Others were not happy with him at all. And it got to the point where he had to reply. I think he ignored a lot of the comments and said,"This got weird. For those asking,

pub:

@LowerRed

Jumper/sweater:

@SobeysVintage. For the dog owners, please send pictures of your dogs." Fair play, fair play. I think one guy, Harry, tweeted saying, "I don't see an issue with this. It's exactly why I stay in adult-only hotels so I don't have to listen to some annoying fucking iPad game." And then, of course, that kicked off a whole other conversation as well, after that. This isn't the first time that people will have put up a pub sign like that. And personally, as a parent, I'm like, sounds like my favourite new local as well. A dog friendly child-free zone. It sounds wonderful. So I don't really get why it all blew up as well, but 74 million views, I mean, in fair play to Kyle for being so chill about it all, but he just, him replying,"This got weird." I mean, yeah, it just, again, unfortunately just got way too out of hand. People posting homophobic abuse at him and it's just over a pub sign. I mean, for me, pubs aren't exactly the most kid-friendly places, so of course they're going to get annoyed and, you know, agitated in pubs and I don't know about you, but kids playing iPad games or there are enough people with their phones on, loudly watching videos and whatever in pubs. So, it's all a bit kind of give and take and everything, but, yeah, just got way, way out of hand. Way too offensive. And the internet is a crazy place. Another thing that's really popular, though, especially on TikTok, is when you get a kind of a day in the life and look into someone's sort of average day, if you like. These videos we know have always been really popular and the one you're about to listen to is from Chloe Williams. She goes by@Chloe.2426, And take a listen to a day in the life of Chloe. Hey, everyone. Spend the day with me, my mum and my dad. Hi. Hi. Just coming out of Hobo Jack. I had a tattoo and brow lamination done. I literally love my tattoo so much. It looks incredible. It literally looks so cute. I love the umbrella and how it's got little hearts on it. Then these are my eyebrows. I love them so much. I think they look so nice. Now we're in George Taps. I've got chicken burger and chips with a Sprite. It looks delicious. What have you got, Mum? I've got a cheese and bacon burger with chips and onion rings and a Coke. What have you got, Dad? Cheese and bacon burger, onion rings, chips and a Coke. We finished our food, it tastes delicious. And now I'll go for a walk along the pier. Mostly good reactions to that clip from Chloe. Lots of people saying things like,"Your energy is so gentle." And this girl,"This girl seems like such a sweetheart." And also commenting, she'd mentioned that she just had her eyebrows threaded or whatever. She liked,"The eyebrows suit you." But there was some really nasty stuff posted as well on here. And one just wonders how much Chloe was sort of prepared for this before her content went viral. She already had quite a big following before this particular video. But, yeah, there's a couple of mean comments about her, about her family, because she features her parents in the video, as you heard. And, yeah, it just sort of sparked a bit of a debate. I mean, Chloe herself kind of engaged with the positive comments, which is good. So people saying, "Oh, you remind me a bit of Ellie Goulding." And she's saying,"Thank you" and all the rest of it. So I'm hoping for Chloe's sake, that she retains that innocence and carries on making the content that makes her feel good about herself and carries on engaging with people. But, yeah, I don't know, we always seem to have to talk about the negativity and the backlash to stuff, and she's not asking for any backlash. She's just doing'This is my life and this is what I did today.' So if she didn't ask for it, then one wonders why she has to put up with it. But as is the nature of the internet. Indeed. I really like this comment from a woman called Sarah. And she says,"Why is everyone so mean? Like, just let the girl do what she loves." And someone replied, going,"First day on the internet?", and she replies back, going, "Nope, just not a brainless bully." I think that's really right. And if you don't like something, just go past it, swipe past it. But instead, people comment and say really nasty things. And I'm sure, you know, with her that she just wants to be a content creator like lots of people, well, like us,. But no-one prepares you, there's really no way to prepare you to cope with abuse and negativity. All you see normally is just the positivity, the brand deals, all those kind of things, but, just people being really unnecessarily nasty to her. No-one can really prepare you for that. And I just, I felt a bit for her on this, obviously, it was really popular. It got nearly 2 million views for this video alone. One of her most popular videos. Yeah. Well, just a heads up to you, Tim. I don't want to hear about the negative feedback that we get, okay? So... No-one ever, everyone loves it, obviously. Talk about love on TikTok. Are we about to have our most liked TikTok ever? So, yeah, I mean, what's that? What it was was a 23 year old called Leah Halton, who's @looooooooch with a few o's in there on TikTok. She's got 8 million followers. And for this, if you listen to the podcast version, you just hear the music. It's her lip-syncing, pulling in her trademark style, where she pulls the camera in, the phone in, and then pulls it out and then lip syncs. This has got 47 million likes within a few days. Absolutely crazy. And kind of sums up TikTok really, is just kind of the randomness of it all, really. And is it like, you tell me on this one, because is it that the content itself is considered so good, or is it just the engagement that the content has had that is suddenly driving this? Kind of like the fact that it's being viewed so many times and that it's getting so much in just in space of a couple of days? A bit of both. Look, she's a young, attractive woman that always attracts people on things like TikTok. Again, once some becomes popular, people start jumping in. There's some very weird engagement comments, engagement bait, like things people saying,"I think you can get to x million likes by this date." And then everyone likes that and boosts it even more. It's all a bit strange and random. I mean, if you want to know what the most liked video ever is, this is Bella Poarch lipsyncing as well. B it's m to the b it's mmm m to the b it's m to the b it's m to the bam. So that video was posted in 2020, has 65.7 million likes. Absolutely mad. The comment I like the most about the original video, though, is someone who says,"Name me 10 reggae songs." It's a bit unfair. It's not necessarily about, you having to like the genre. If you just like, lipsyncing to a particular song. It would be interesting to know if she had an answer, though. We wait to see if she follows up on that, and indeed, if she breaks the record. We'll keep everyone posted. Now, have you ever looked around your home and just thought, my goodness, that is so British? I'd be confused by a few things. I wouldn't say necessarily British, but someone's kind of taken a closer look at it, really, haven't they, from an American perspective. Here we go. So this is the latest TikTok from travel vlogger Helene Sua, who goes by @HeleneInBetween. She's been, obviously, you can hear from the accent she's an American, born American and has been living in Oxford in England since 2023, so not really that long at all. And brilliantly, she's been noticing and highlighting in a kind of very deadpan kind of way all the differences between US and UK homes. And I thought the first one she highlights there, as you heard, is all about the taps. And I was like, yeah, actually, it's really weird. Like, why do we just have hot and cold taps? It's really difficult, as you probably know, with a child as well, when you're trying to wash their hands or something like that, and you've got the absolute burning furnace of the hot tap and then the freezing cold. So she comments on that. She comments on the weird shower glass thing that never works and just floods their bathroom every time. And then I love the one she's talking about, like, terraced homes, basically. Like, most of the houses share, you know, most homes share a wall. So you can, you might just hear your neighbour breathing. And it just made me think as I was like, yeah, that's my house. It's funny how it resonates. I did like some of the comments from American followers asking, you know, or posing their own questions around the taps particularly seem to be the issue. And then someone complained about why no air conditioning in homes as well. Probably a bit unnecessary, let's be honest with our weather. But I think it's fascinating, again, that people spotted the cultural differences between these houses. Yeah, I want to know. There wasn't enough, I don't think, in the comments yet, but I've seen, at least on what American houses have that British houses don't have, like, the good stuff. Other than she goes on about the plugs, I get it. It is a bit annoying to have to switch the plug on each time to check that it actually works. But, yeah, I'm kind of like, we don't really need AC in this country because we have about two months of maybe some moderately mild weather and that's about it. But, yeah, I want to, I'd like to hear more about the benefits and the bonuses, other than size, because American houses tend to be bigger of an American house over a UK house. Next on the show, it's What It's Like To Go Viral, and this is an incredible story. This woman is Ashley McGuire, who's a mum of four from Massachusetts. Last week, she posted on Facebook asking for help to try and find her AWOL husband, a guy called Charlie Withers, a British chef. She posted this quite long Facebook post, but basically detailed how, in her words, he"ghosted, like gone without a trace" when she was pregnant with their youngest child. Apparently he then moved out of the state, she didn't get any response to any of her texts she sent him on different numbers and she just said,"Look, I need help finding him so I can finalise our divorce." And this went absolutely crazy, not only on Facebook, but also on other social platforms as well. This was shared by a content creator on Twitter called Kay, whose handle is @okayyywowww And this was her post, which was seen 50 million times on Twitter. Wowzers. And she ended up finding Charlie down to some internet sleuthing. But also, we've talked about this before, this Facebook group called Are We Dating The Same Guy? And they managed to track him down, he's living in Dallas. And Ashley then went on the breakfast show of Jam’n 94.5FM in Boston. It was actually hosted by her friend, who's also called Ashlee. And Ashley, the mum, explained how it all blew up. I cannot believe how much this took off. And, you know, it's kind of crazy because I, my intention was to not bash him. I feel like he could easily be the most hated man in the world. Can I just say, I know the full story could have been way worse. Could have been way worse. I left out a lot of details. Yeah, I was very graceful, you know, very cautious. My goal was not to disrupt his whole life. I just want to have the store closed and just move on. I don't want any ties, I don't want any connections, I don't want, I just want, the next chapter of my life to start. I'm not even on TikTok. And my eleven year old last night, she's like, "Mom.." Yeah. I made her take it off her phone. Yeah, I would too. I don't want you to read that. Yeah, exactly. He was in the process of adopting her. Yeah. And that was like, that's her dad, right? You know, it's crazy. Yeah, it was tough. You start typing 'cha' now on TikTok, it's, it blows up. I think for me at the end of the day too, it's about respect. You just dug this hole in my life, you flipped my world upside down. The least you can do is not send me on a wild goose chase to find you and just sign these papers. Just sign it over and just let me, you know what I mean? Just let me cut all ties. It's just incredible. I mean, we've heard this a lot, people not expecting posts to go so viral as they did, but it obviously resonated with a lot of people. She actually said a lot of single mums, but also just women who wanted to help and find this guy. The impact being having to, it started to affect her own family and young children, but, she found him. But it's just incredible, really an incredible story. And then he texted her, didn't he, as well, something like that. So he kind of got involved without being kind of too upset about the fact that he'd been found. Was there aggression in the text message, or was it kind of like,"Hey, hey, it's Charles. I'm happy to talk to you. Can you." Like, he hasn't been gone. Hey. Like, he hasn't been Casper for the past year. Exactly. Exactly. And then she's had girls, other women, messaging her, asking about how they know the guy who they're dating as well. So it's all just, completely. I mean, his cover is completely blown. Let's face it. The last time he saw the kids was last April. I saw him in maybe July, August. And then he dipped after that. And that's kind of where things got super messy, where, I had girls in this place, this place, this place reaching out to me being like, "Hey, you know, I just went on a deep social media dive. I was dating this guy. One of my friends thought something was weird about him. You know, we came back to your profile, like, how do you know him?" And I got a couple of messages like that. You're like, "Oh, I know him well. He's the father of my kids. Also, he's my husband." Right. We are still married. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Some of the comments were like, "Oh, I actually just matched with him on Bumble", and he's on Bumble talking about,"I don't have any kids." It's hard to understand. It's hurtful. At the end of the day, this is somebody. I married him. It's not like we just. Ash. He was in my living room. I watched you two interact. I loved this man. She was also hugely appreciative of the sleuth work that fellow women did. But there were a lot of, again, you get the backlash and some unwelcome messages. The other thing that's crazy about this is the amount of men that took this as an opportunity to be like, "Hey" I was about to say, who's hollering at you?"Hey, do you need a stepdad?" I'm like, are you kidding me? No. The internet is the devil's playground. We say it all. We're not the best. Forgive us. We're not the best. Right? There's a part of the internet that is nasty and ugly. But some of these women went to work for you. Oh, 100% it is. I would love to see, like, the stats on, like, TruthFinder and all of those background reports from yesterday, because I have so many screenshots that people sent me. And it was funny because, they would send me stuff, and they're like,"He's working at C Salt in Falmouth." Or like, "he lives at this address." And it was the address of where we live together. And I'm like, "Oh, thanks, I appreciate it." You know, the sleuths were out there sleuthing. But we did find actual concrete proof of where he is living in Texas via a girl that has been there, which is what I needed, you know. I need to know where this guy is. So of course, some men defending her or her husband, others hitting on her and asking whether she needs a new husband. I think she's probably had enough of men for a while. What I liked, there was a comment on Twitter from @MomOfDroids is her handle. It simply says, "I hate men." And that got 8,000 likes, over 1 million views. And it's just an incredible story, went really viral and she's now, Ashley has deleted the Facebook posts. She just wants to finalise the divorce, get on with her life and have a lower profile on things. Unfortunately, there were innocent people caught up. There was apparently a video of a man similar looking to Charlie singing karaoke that was shared lots. Wasn't him. It wasn't him. We saw this last time on the show, people getting caught up, people trying to help with this thing, but glad at least there's a happy ending, or a resolved situation with this story with Ashley. And now it's time for the Timeline Cleanser. Good morning. Day 6 of running a mile every day for a month for mental health. A guy called Marcus Skeet, who's a content creator goes under the handle@TheHullBoy1 This post we're showing you now of him running around got a lot of attention and a lot of negativity and people were taking the mickey out of him for running around the stadium. Unnecessary. You know, again, people just pass and scroll on but they want to stop. And whether it's a rival club or because I think the idea, the concept's funny, they have to leave a comment. A good side of this is that he has now smashed his total. I think he was looking for £250. He's now nearly £2,000. And on his GoFundMe page he's explained why he's doing it. He's lost friends to mental health issues and he also admits that he's struggled with depression as well. And he is really saying, talking about "pushing himself to the max and doing a mile run a day, there will be no excuses." And I think it's really positive and a good side of the internet we don't often see, especially with football. He's even gone on and done his first 5k as well. So all the haters out there who are sort of body shaming him and all the rest of it, then you know, screw you basically because he keeps running a mile a day and keeps up with this challenge, then he'll hopefully be mentally and physically fighting fit. So it's fantastic what he's doing and like you said, a couple of snarky comments but most of it overwhelmingly positive. So a really good Timeline Cleanser for us indeed. And wish you all the best, Marcus, with that. And that's the end of this week's show. All the links to the posts that we featured and videos we featured will be up on our socials along with clips of the viral videos and we'll be back next week and speak to you later on. Bye.