Is the internet about to blow up your marriage?

Social media sleuths who wildly speculate on the state of high profile marriages have been hard to avoid in recent weeks. Many of them have gone viral, racking up millions of views on TikTok and Twitter/X, after cooking up all kinds of stories about infidelity and relationships on the rocks, often offering outlandish so-called “evidence” to back up their ridiculour claims. 

The armchair detectives base their theories on a small detail in a photograph, an outfit choice or by cobbling together a timeline. The more unhinged the theory the more their videos seem to attract an audience. But it’s not just those in the public eye who are subject to their conspiratorial eagle-eyes. The internet’s army of investigators has a new target… regular people. 

This month alone, two alleged “cheats” have gone viral on TikTok after sleuths exposed their names and, in one case, published covertly shot photographs of them.

The first was sparked by fitness creator Tiana Wiltshire after she posted a video to TikTok asking for help to find a woman she believed had been cheated on. She said: “If your fiance just went on his bachelor trip to Las Vegas and was at the MGM Wet Republic pool yesterday, Sunday 9 March, he cheated on you.”

Wiltshire went on to say, “his name rhymes with Cat Saddams”, and asked for the “wronged” fiancee to reach out to her.

As views for her video notched up, so did the comments from viewers who decided that the alleged cheater was called “Matt Adams”. Other self-appointed detectives found wedding websites and registries on Amazon and The Knot under that name. Commenters tagged women, including Shaylee Stovall, who is engaged to a Matt Adams, but not the one who had been partying in Vegas.

Within a day Wiltshire’s video had clocked up 11 million views. It has now been watched over 25 million times and there are over 22,000 comments on the original post. Wiltshire herself added one to update the millions who were following the saga that the fiancee had been tracked down. So far the woman she was seeking hasn’t been named and we don’t know how she reacted.

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Stovall – who was one of the women who was misidentified – also made a TikTok video explaining what it was like to be caught up in the drama that followed Wiltshire’s sleuthing.

She captioned it “wedding is on”, and said that people had been “blowing our phones up” with a “tonne of likes, comments, views, DMs, messages”. Stovall was also sent a fake RSVP from someone posing as a wedding guest warning her not to marry her fiance.

Soon after, someone called Samantha Marks started a similar hunt for another woman after she claimed she had caught a man called “Bryan with a y” trying to cheat on his wife. Marks explained that she had sat next to “Bryan with a y” on a flight from Orlando to Chicago and watched him download the Hinge dating app and create a profile. 

Marks described his physical attributes in detail and published a secretly taken photograph of his arm and hand to show that he was wearing a silver wedding band. Marks ended the TikTok post by saying, “If this is your husband DM me on Instagram because I have pictures, I have proof.”

The video has now been viewed nearly 9 million times and Marks has created three further videos giving updates on her mission including one that featured two full-length pictures of “Bryan with a y” from behind. 

The final update was posted on Tuesday (19 March) where Marks revealed what she’d discovered about Bryan from two of his acquaintances. She dished even more personal details about the alleged wannabe cheater before adding that his wife had now seen her videos. Marks then reveals that Bryan’s wife was aware that he flirted with women on dating apps long before she alerted TikTok to it. 

Marks adds: “From what I can tell she’s fine with it and it’s being handled, or not, privately.

“I was trying to help a woman find out the truth about her husband but if she’s OK with it that’s her choice and it is what it is.”

While this trend to expose cheats is new, “social snitching” has been a thing for a while, with creators going viral for sharing private conversations or events that they have overheard or witnessed.

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Last September content creator Kelsey Kotzur detailed on TikTok how she’d listened in as three bridesmaids slated a bride and her wedding during brunch in a London restaurant. She described it as “sinister” as they critiqued the “ugly” flowers and the bride’s appearance. 

Kotzur added: “If you just got married and your colour scheme was blush and you have two blonde friends with short bobs and you have a brunette friend don’t be friends with them anymore.”

And in 2021 TikToker Drewbdoobdoo appealed for help to find “Marissa” after overhearing her friends plotting against her in New York City. Viewers worked out it was Marissa Meizz and she subsequently ditched the friends.

Social sleuthing videos easily and quickly go viral because they generate thousands of comments and are frequently shared. As we’ve seen with the recent rumours about the royals blowing up the internet, the stories being shared are juicy, even if they are evidence free.

And as Wiltshire and Marks have shown, even if viewers don’t know the people involved – that doesn’t matter. These videos catch fire because of audience participation with other amateur detectives keen to share their own research and theories which creates even more content. 

The rewards for posting a sleuthing video are significant. Profiles are raised and creators who are eligible for programmes which share TikTok and Twitter/X advertising revenue could have made money from their viral videos.

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It certainly was a positive enough experience for Marks to launch a series called “Hot Goss” where she says she’ll share more secrets sent to her from viewers.

On the flipside, the ethics of online exposés are deeply dubious as claims are nearly always based on assumptions and the social media frenzies that they cause can damage the people at their centre.

Wiltshire is unrepentant, saying in one of her posts: “I would do it again. I have no regrets.

“I’ve been cheated on… and I can’t imagine being in a position where I’m about to marry someone and spend the rest of my life with them and not know that they just slept with someone last night.”

In the case of “Bryan with a y”, the pictures that Marks posted of him at the airport and of his wedding band were clear invasions of his privacy. But, for as long as exposé videos are enjoyed by audiences and platforms push them into their feeds, then the incentives to make them remain. Cheaters, beware, the sleuths could be coming for you next.

Rachel Richardson writes the trends newsletter highly flammable on Substack