TikTok has declared a random man as it’s new main character, dubbing him “Dress Guy” after his wife, Ashley Beachy, shared a video of him completely ignoring her as she danced around in her wedding dress.
#DressGuy emerged after TikToker Ashley (@ashley.bachy1) posted a video of herself dancing around her kitchen in her wedding dress to get the attention of her husband. The video was inspired by a scene in Netflix’s documentary series Beckham, where David and Victoria Beckham have a little boogie to “Island in the Streams” by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers.
David and Victoria’s sweet moment together captivated audiences, who began recreating the scene online. It was soon dubbed ‘The David Beckham Challenge”, where TikTokers would put on the song and see if they can get their partner to dance with them unprompted.
Usually, the challenge resulted in some very cute, loved-up content. However, Ashley’s attempt at the challenge has viewers worried about the state of her marriage.
In the video, Ashley can be seen in a gorgeous lace wedding dress, dancing around her kitchen as her husband sits on the bench with his eyes staring at his phone.
While she danced around him, attempting to get his attention, his eyes remained fixed on his phone. Honestly, it feels… awkward.
Have a look at the video below.
“Nine years married today…failed challenge,” she captioned the video, hashtagging it with #couplecomedy.
Although Ashley may have felt that it was a funny little moment in their marriage, many viewers didn’t agree.
As it racked up over 16 million views, the comment section filled up with strong reactions from other women and dubbing her husband as #DressGuy.
“Perfect time to marry someone else,” one person wrote.
“Ladies and gentlemen we have experienced couch guy, now I give you dress guy,” said another.
“This makes me so sad for you! He didn’t even look up. Even if he didn’t want to join he could have admired you,” commented a user.
And my personal favourite comment: “Hey girl, alongside the obvious, he’s also wearing a puffer vest with short sleeves! Hope this helps!”
While many comments were encouraging Ashley to leave her husband for his lack of attention on their anniversary, others were quick to suggest that it was posted purely as “rage bait” people into interacting with the post. Which, if that’s true, it bloody worked.
A few days later, Ashley posted another video where she gave the challenge another crack. This time, instead of her wedding dress, she donned some hockey gear — which certainly got her husband’s attention. Despite her hubby actually playing ball this time (pun intended) the comments were still pretty spicy.
“Well, this is awkward,” wrote one person.
“Unfortunate that he only pays attention to you in sports gear and not your wedding dress,” said another commenter, to which Ashley responded, “That’s the joke.”
The thing is, it’s not the first time the TikTok collective has jumped to conclusions as they dissect the reactions of various men.
Back in 2021, the internet went absolutely bonkers over the reaction of Couch Guy — a dude named Robert McCoy — whose girlfriend surprised him at college. While the video is now deleted on TikTok, it showed her rocking up to his dorm excited to see him. His reaction was delayed, causing many to suspect he was cheating. It went massively viral as internet sleuths did their best to track him down and find out what was ~really~ going on in this young relationship.
For weeks, Robert was harassed, online and offline, for the way he reacted in a singular moment.
Later, once the fervour towards him died down, he spoke out about the invasion of his privacy on and offline, to remind online sleuths to think of the person behind the viral snapshot they’re dissecting.
“Given the apparent tendency of the TikTok algorithm to present viral spectacles to a user base increasingly hungry for content to analyze forensically, there will inevitably be more Couch Guys or Praters in the future,” Robert told Slate.
“When they appear on your For You page, I implore you to remember that they are people, not mysteries for you to solve.”
The same thing happened to a dude referred to as West Elm Caleb in 2022 who was a bit of a dirty dog on dating apps and found himself as the victim of an online witch hunt.
Now, as Robert predicted, it’s starting to happen again.
I get why this video has been such a trigger point for many people.
Having a partner dismiss such an open invitation for a bid of attention in any situation feels awful. And many women worry about falling into relationships where they are taken for granted or stuck in a loveless situation, especially once kids are brought into the equation.
Ultimately, the first video was just a very quick snapshot of their lives.
We have no idea what happened that day, or what he was looking at on his phone. But the virality of her first video means that they’ll be tainted with the brush of a seemingly unhappy relationship no matter how many other loved-up videos they post. After all, if we’ve learnt anything from Couch Guy or even 2022’s West Elm Caleb, it’s that the internet enjoys the sleuth more than it enjoys leaving space for any context.
While we may love a mystery — or even just piping hot tea — I think it’s important to remember that we don’t know shit about fuck when it comes to the lives of random people online. And it’s certainly not our right or duty to cut people down for not looking at their wife in a wedding dress — even if he really should’ve just told her she was beautiful and danced with her in the first place.
Let’s all go touch some grass, hey?
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