The Many Lessons Of Coldplay
In the run up to the publication of this issue many bombshells were dropped, the most sustained was the Epstein thing, the most conveniently sidelined was continued revelations about Steel Dossier shenanigans, and the most fun had to be the Coldplay concert going down in history for suddenly turning into reality TV.
It was just any other night for Astronomer CEO Andy Byron taking his employees out for a treat and having a little cuddle with his chief people officer Kristin Cabot. It’s a job perk! Presumably neither of their partners knew because when a couple cam was turned on them by the event the fight or flight instinct instantly kicked in, with Byron ducking like infantry under fire into a fox hole. Cabot pivoted and faced the other way while holding her face to hopefully make the problem disappear. It was a beautiful moment for the rubber neckers of the internet. It was drama encapsulated, a story told in a sentence. If that wasn’t bad enough Chris Martin called it instantly from the stage saying ‘They’re either having an affair, or they’re just very shy’.
Here are the lessons we learned from watching the genesis of a divorce in real time.
Pick the Venue
If you’re going to take your new squeeze somewhere, make sure it’s to something your wife will happily decline to going to if you offer her tickets first. On top of Coldplay concerts Ideas include monster truck rallies, the Peaches & Cream expo, and WWE.
Venues, offer new designated seating
There’s obviously a market for private seating but I’m not here to reinvent private box seating. I’m just saying you could re-market the seats that are stuck behind pillars and out of sight from roaming cameras. They could finally become the premium seating they were always destined to be.
Act Natural
If you are caught in the crosshairs, you’re just going to have to roll with it. Give the world weary kiss of a middle aged couple that has done this a million times before and then nobody will ask questions. Commando rolling away from someone you were just moments earlier spooning will only super charge the Streisand Effect.
Write an apology before everyone else does
This was originally going to be a section about poorly written unapologetic apologies but it turns out at the time of writing CEO Andy Byron had not made any public statements at all, and all the outrageous letters bumping around were scraped off random twitter accounts with chatGPT access. In the age of the zero fact checking you need to get ahead of the trolls while still offering mainstream outlets fodder to work with in the meantime. This is why I recommend leaving a one line post on your social media accounts stating “Apology pending”. Outrageous, ambiguous, headline grabbing. It takes the wind out of the sails of people going out of their way to generate apologies for you. You might look like a gigantic asshole, but at least you maintain control of the narrative.
When life gives you infidelity, make lemonade
Speaking of narrative control perhaps the true winner in all of this was Astronomer, they were dealt a dicey hand, which started with saying goodbye to all offending parties. But now what do you do with all this energy in the room? They hired Ryan Reynold’s creative agency Maximum Effort to harness it. So they hired Gweneth Paltrow, Cold Play’s Chris Martin’s ex-wife to act as the VERY temporary ambassador for the brand. They spliced an ad together claiming to answer people’s burning questions but instead making it about the services and events Astronomer is hosting. It was a genius PR move and I’m sure dozens of people are now interested in their uh… Cloud? Services? I’m not really sure I wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention to all the words Paltrow was delivering.