A Polish executive innocently dragged into a viral internet scandal says he now feels the pain of the innocent Kennebunk woman whose millionaire husband’s famous romantic embrace of his mistress in a global ‘jumbotron’ moment caught her cold-footed.
Roman Szkaradek, who owns a Polish paving company, is being confused with Piotr Szczerek, who also owns a Polish paving company but in a different town.
It was Szczerek, not Szkaradek, who went viral at the U.S. Open tennis match last week allegedly grabbing a souvenir hat from a little boy in the bleachers. Szczerek has been roundly criticized around the world for taking a hat that one of the U.S. Open players tried to give to a boy in the stands.
Szkaradek, trying to explain to The New York Times what it feels like to go viral on internet video for doing nothing wrong, likened the U.S. Open name mixup and his subsequent nightmare to the memorable video of Astronomer CEO Andy Byron romantically embracing his chief HR gal at a Coldplay concert earlier this summer.
That video, also widely shared, led to the resignations of both Byron and Kristin Cabot after they were identified by online watchers.
The comparison between the two cases is understandable in the way it describes how video goes viral in the internet age – and often can ensnare the innocent.
The outcomes are also similar in that Szkaradek has been pilloried on the internet and lost a lot of business being confused for the alleged hat thief.
And Megan Byron was forced to take cover at her and her philandering husband’s $2.4 million Kennebunk beach palace to avoid the press – and humiliation – after The Hug went viral.
The scandalous romantic embrace between a married woman (Cabot) and a man (Byron) who’s not her husband but is her alleged Kennebunk lover and who is married to someone else (Megan) fried Megan’s self-respect – and who can blame her.
Turns out that innocently having a surname eerily similar to a lowlife hat snatcher can be just as debilitating as unexpectedly catching your spouse two-timing you for all the world can see.
