<p>What could make a video clip from America, lasting a few seconds, go viral around the world – across newspaper pages, television screens, and social media? The grab shows two people in an embrace, suddenly disengaging, ducking, and hiding after a camera captured them during a Coldplay concert. </p>.<p>The man and the woman – the married CEO of a software company and the firm’s HR head, respectively – launched thousands of memes and comments and found prime space in venerated newspapers. </p>.<p>A major British daily made a graphic description: “Their eyes widen in horror and they break apart: she turns and buries her face in her hands, he ducks down to the ground, perhaps willing it to swallow him.” It even noted that “glee does not do justice to the speed with which the clip went viral and the schadenfreude it elicited”. Follow-up reports and the memes are still coming in.</p>.<p>News in the world is now centred on Trump. There is the Ukraine war and the tariff war, there is Gaza; there are earthquakes, falling bridges, and other things – good and bad, man-made and natural – that make news. Why does a private matter involving the head of a company and his colleague make media waves? The man is not an influential MNC chief, a statesman, or a celebrity. He was not biting a dog. The woman is not a princess, an heiress, or a star. But they found their place in the world’s fleeting focus of gaze and gossip, and ended up as characters in a setting of no great public importance but of effusive public interest.</p>.<p>Schadenfreude? What pleasure does the world derive from a little-known couple’s passing embarrassment? Voyeurism? But there are other possibilities. A personal moment was exposed, without the consent of the people involved, for public consumption. The nature of their relationship or the fact that they were “caught” unaware cannot be defining reasons for this massive global interest. </p>.<p>What is it, then? Relief from the flow of the usual grim and wearying events of the world? A comic break for some or a serious diversion for the others? The couple’s slip may have evoked a smile or a chuckle, but it was the jumping, waving youth in the background who provided a merry contrast. The couple made an image that defied the definition of news, but they also reassured the world of its human ways – the ways of couples from the past and of many more to come. Being human matters, and it expands all definitions.</p>
<p>What could make a video clip from America, lasting a few seconds, go viral around the world – across newspaper pages, television screens, and social media? The grab shows two people in an embrace, suddenly disengaging, ducking, and hiding after a camera captured them during a Coldplay concert. </p>.<p>The man and the woman – the married CEO of a software company and the firm’s HR head, respectively – launched thousands of memes and comments and found prime space in venerated newspapers. </p>.<p>A major British daily made a graphic description: “Their eyes widen in horror and they break apart: she turns and buries her face in her hands, he ducks down to the ground, perhaps willing it to swallow him.” It even noted that “glee does not do justice to the speed with which the clip went viral and the schadenfreude it elicited”. Follow-up reports and the memes are still coming in.</p>.<p>News in the world is now centred on Trump. There is the Ukraine war and the tariff war, there is Gaza; there are earthquakes, falling bridges, and other things – good and bad, man-made and natural – that make news. Why does a private matter involving the head of a company and his colleague make media waves? The man is not an influential MNC chief, a statesman, or a celebrity. He was not biting a dog. The woman is not a princess, an heiress, or a star. But they found their place in the world’s fleeting focus of gaze and gossip, and ended up as characters in a setting of no great public importance but of effusive public interest.</p>.<p>Schadenfreude? What pleasure does the world derive from a little-known couple’s passing embarrassment? Voyeurism? But there are other possibilities. A personal moment was exposed, without the consent of the people involved, for public consumption. The nature of their relationship or the fact that they were “caught” unaware cannot be defining reasons for this massive global interest. </p>.<p>What is it, then? Relief from the flow of the usual grim and wearying events of the world? A comic break for some or a serious diversion for the others? The couple’s slip may have evoked a smile or a chuckle, but it was the jumping, waving youth in the background who provided a merry contrast. The couple made an image that defied the definition of news, but they also reassured the world of its human ways – the ways of couples from the past and of many more to come. Being human matters, and it expands all definitions.</p>
