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When Meagan Glesmann, a 21-year-old college student based in Winnipeg, Canada, returned home after traveling to Hawaii for four months, she decided to surprise her boyfriend with a grand gesture — showing up at a social event without telling him. in advance. that he returned. The moment was captured by his friends, who filmed 22-year-old Matthew Boyle looking stunned as his girlfriend walked over to hug him. Glesmann decided to post a 17-second clip of the surprise on her TikTok account because she thought his expression in the video was “funny”. But things took a turn for the worse when Glesmann, who has 8,500 TikTok followers and typically gets thousands of views on each of her posts, went viral within days. Shockingly, the post has received 18.5 million views. Glesmann and Boyle, who told Insider they’re only casual TikTok users who don’t know most of the viral trends and memes, said they had no idea what they wanted after going viral. Meagan Glesmann and Matthew Boyle Meagan Glesmann and Matthew Boyle

Viewers were quick to compare the video to a previous similar viral moment — but it wasn’t positive

Glesmann and Boyle the former Insider were happy to see each other and that the evening was anything but awkward despite Boyle’s initial reaction, who said he was “processing” the situation as he was caught off guard. But viewers of Glesmann’s TikTok didn’t see anything happen between the pair after the cameras stopped rolling and their responses to her short video were harsh. As the video began to garner more views, commenters began to dissect Boyle’s reaction and body language in the clip, saying he looked “guilty” and “worried” when he saw her. Some commenters also said his response suggested he was cheating on her while she was away. Many commentators compared Glesmann’s video to a similar clip that went extremely viral in September 2021. It showed a woman surprising her college boyfriend, but his apparent reluctance to get off the couch where he was sitting led to furious discussions about the nature of their relationship, and widespread speculation about his fidelity. He quickly became known as “Couch Guy” and the video received 50 million views. Some viewers of Glesmann’s video said they believed the clip was a deliberate parody or recreation of the “Couch Guy” video, especially since it used the same sound — a clip from Ellie Goulding’s “Still Falling for You.” But Glesmann said she had never heard of the original video and chose to use the audio because she saw it trending under the hashtag #longdistancerelationship. “When I posted it and people started commenting, I was like, ‘what’s the couch?’” she told Insider. When she looked it up and realized the comparison wasn’t positive, she said she was upset. “I probably shed a few tears,” she told Insider.

Going so viral can subject the people at the center of these clips to online abuse

Nearly three months after the original “Couch Guy” TikTok blew up, the man in the video wrote an anonymous op-ed in Slate magazine, describing the intense experience of achieving this level of fame. He said the online hate exposed him to “violations of my privacy” and “the threat of doxxing.” Glesmann and Boyle told Insider that it was also overwhelming for them at first to receive a huge influx of negative comments on their video. Online commenters are constantly making fun of their relationship. When Glesmann posted a short photo gallery of her and Boyle to celebrate three years together on October 13, commenters under the post expressed skepticism about how happy their relationship was, suggesting they were trying to cover up their problems or “justify” relationship. The couple told Insider that they expect people to have opinions about anything they post. “That’s kind of sad, but, you just have to expect it,” Glesmann said. “People use these apps for entertainment. And when you get a video that goes viral, you immediately have an opinion about it,” Boyle added. The couple said they became desensitized to many of the negatives. “With the first comments, I was like, oh, this kind of hurts. But then it was too much,” Glesmann said. Boyle told Insider that after a few days, he simply “got over” the online hate and tried to move on. “I haven’t lost any sleep over it,” he said. He continued, “It’s pretty funny that something that was so innocent turned into something so big, but it doesn’t really affect me at all.” For more stories like this, check out coverage from Insider’s Digital Culture team here.