Meet Couch Guy 2.0, courtesy of 21-year-old Utah resident Courtney Ebeling.


Last week, Ebeling posted what she thought was a wholesome compilation of videos of her boyfriend and best friend “fight[ing] like siblings” — physical, largely harmless play fighting you’d expect from children or, yes, siblings.




But commenters were quick to sound the alarm bells, with many warning Courtney that it “always starts out like this,” and that the pair are “obviously into each other,” with one commenter writing, “There are many articles on what ‘play fighting’ indicates. The girls commenting aren’t insecure they’re just smart.”


A quick Google search resulted in a handful of Urban Dictionary definitions of “play fighting,” including, “An excuse for people who like each other to make physical interactions.” The first scholarly article that came up states, “The competition present in play fighting revolves around gaining some advantage, such as biting a partner without being bitten.” Not quite sure that applies here, though: There’s no biting in the video, and these are humans, not cats.


Regardless, everyone is convinced Courtney’s best friend and boyfriend are into each other, and they’ve flooded Courtney’s comments to let her know, to the tune of 55,000 and counting. She doesn’t seem concerned, though, posting a follow-up video with her boyfriend a day later with the caption, “Today I learned the internet is more insecure about ur relationship than you are wbu?”


@courtneyebeling

Today i learned the internet is more insecure about ur relationship than you are wbu?

♬ Cooped Up / Return Of The Mack - Post Malone & Mark Morrison & Sickick


Many saw similarities with the Couch Guy drama of 2021, when a girl posted a TikTok surprising her boyfriend at college (who was sitting on a couch in the video), only for his response to be less enthusiastic than viewers expected. The video quickly went viral — two years later, the original TikTok has over 67 million views — resulting in thousands of strangers analyzing the couple’s relationship and accusing Couch Guy of infidelity.


Writing about the experience for Slate in December 2021, Couch Guy, real name Robert McCoy, criticized the ease with which people turned his life into a mystery to be solved — analyzing his body language and drawing conclusions about his behavior and interest in his girlfriend based on it, combing through his social media pages and those of his friends for clues, etc. McCoy implored readers to remember that people who appear in these massively viral videos are people, writing, “As users focused their collective magnifying glass on Lauren, my friends and me — comparing their sleuthing to ‘watching a soap opera and knowing who the bad guy is’ — it felt like the entertainment value of the meme began to overshadow our humanity.”


@laurenzarras

robbie had no idea

♬ still falling for you - audiobear


Unfortunately for those under the microscope, armchair investigators never rest, as Courtney Ebeling undoubtedly discovered when thousands of strangers informed her she was being cheated on — right in front of her no less.