Song of the Day 7/20: Coldplay, “Fix You”

If only every scandal was resolved this quickly. The Kiss Cam Canoodler – as a human with access to the internet, you surely know who I mean – has resigned his post as CEO of a tech company called Astronomer.

I’ve seen a couple of plausible theories on why this couple’s accidental humiliation went viral. One points out that CEO and HR director are the two most hated people in most companies, so catching the a CEO and HR chief in a compromising situation together makes for maximum schadenfreude. Another notes that people are desperate to share a story, any story, that contains no mention of the Orange Excrescence.

I had two takeaways. First, this shows that privacy is an increasingly rare commodity in modern society. The anonymity of the crowd evaporates when you realize that cameras are scanning you the whole time, preparing to make you part of the entertainment.

Second, I didn’t realize how many people think Coldplay is lame. I’ve heard many of their songs because they got radio airplay. I thought they were OK, not a big fan but don’t dislike them, but I never thought much about them so I didn’t realize most of their hits are from way back in the ’00s. I also missed “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” so I didn’t realize they already had become the butt of jokes by 2008, the year they had their biggest American hit, “Viva la Vida.”

Chris Martin, who seems to have emerged unscathed from his conscious uncoupling with Gwyneth Paltrow a decade ago, made light of the band’s role in the scandal, warning the crowd at a Wisconsin concert last night that they might be put onscreen: “So please, if you haven’t done your makeup, do your makeup now.”

In one bizarre twist to the story, a purported apology from the CEO, Andy Byron, turned up online, and more than one news outlet cited it before it was determined to be a fraud. The fake post was accompanied by the Coldplay song “Fix You,” from their 2005 LP “X&Y.” Martin wrote it comfort Paltrow after the death of her father.