A woman’s relationship is currently being dissected after sharing a 13-second video of her boyfriend. In a viral TikTok, Kira (@fodo_nyc), a food and travel influencer, shares her boyfriend’s extreme “dedication to the bit” when she asked him to bring back some leftovers from Carbone. Folks did not find his gesture in the least bit funny.
‘A few bites’
Kira’s clip begins with a to-go bag from high-end Italian restaurant Carbone. Having a reservation at this eatery is often said to be a reflection of social and wealth status. Its star-studded clientele includes A-listers like Rihanna and the Kardashians.
So when Kira’s boyfriend had dinner there that night, there was no way she would pass up the chance to enjoy some of the restaurant’s offerings. They have locations in several cities, including New York City, where Kira was.
“When your boyfriend goes to Carbone and you ask him to bring you a few bites of spicy rigatoni and he took it way too seriously,” Kira writes in the text overlay. She then pulls out the plastic container from the to-go bag. Jostling inside is one single rigatoni. The boyfriend smiles cheekily as Kira asks, “Seriously?”
“It was supposed to be two,” the boyfriend says as an apology.
She added in her caption, “Idk if I should be annoyed or impressed by the dedication to the bit.”
‘It was a joke’
Viewers could smell the comments coming from a mile away. The first one read, “Not even a little bit funny,” while another straight up said Kira’s boyfriend hates her.
Most of the comments were from women getting upset on Kira’s behalf.
“Babe, as someone in a relationship not a single troll this isn’t [really] that funny,” one user wrote. “The way my fiancé orders me an entire meal from appetizer to dessert when I just ask for a little snack. Fridges exist – it gets eaten regardless of my hunger in that moment. This is … infuriating at best.”
This led Kira to defend her boyfriend, writing, “We’re only in NY for one night this week. Trust me he’s the biggest walking green flag – it was a joke.”
Several other comments echoed this sentiment, with a few assuring viewers not to take it way too seriously.
“I don’t know the ins and outs of your relationship and I’m sure he’s better than it looks in this video but I’d cry if this happened to me,” one said.
Kira replies, “It’s a great relationship. I hysterically laughed because this was perhaps the silliest, most inconsequential thing he’s maybe ever done.”
@fodo_nyc Idk if I should be annoyed or impressed by the dedication to the bit ? #carbone #carbonenyc #boyfriend #nyc #viral ♬ Queen of Disaster – ella
TikTok relationship detectives
While it’s difficult for a stranger to deduce the quality of a relationship based on a 13-second video, that doesn’t stop internet sleuths from sharing their verdicts. Sharing your dating life on social media invites such actions from strangers on the internet. In 2021, the explosive “couch guy” situation became a hot debate on how far TikTokers go to figure out the machinations of a relationship. “Couch guy,” aka Robert McCoy, was lambasted online after his long-distance girlfriend surprised him.
In the short clip, he was sitting next to a female friend. That, coupled with what folks called a less-than-ecstatic reaction, led thousands to call him a cheater. The debacle went so far that McCoy ended up writing a piece in Slate about how the TikTokstigation affected him.
‘West Elm Caleb’
A year later, the “sequel to Couch Guy” dropped. West Elm Caleb was the new man in hot water with internet sleuths. In this TikTok-fueled fiasco, several women found out they were chatting with the same man on dating apps. After matching and messaging them, he would then ghost them. Unlike McCoy, West Elm Caleb was just a serial ghoster. However, that was enough for people to track down where he works (West Elm) and castigate him relentlessly online. But then it went too far.
“People in TikTok video comments started calling for him to be fired from his job, spamming the brand’s Instagram account; brands ranging from sex toys to rival dating apps to mayonnaise also started profiting off Caleb’s misfortune by alluding to the story in social posts and ads,” Rolling Stone’s EJ Dickson wrote. “What had started as a harmless, fairly local trend calling out a bad date rapidly metamorphosed into a mass harassment event, and the women who had initiated the trend largely watched helplessly as they saw their videos take on a life of their own.”
Why are people so invested in the relationship?
In a Yahoo Life article, experts weighed in on why folks became so invested in dating stories like these. One expert, Pamela Rutledge, told Yahoo that is a classic example of “parasocial relationships.”
“[This is when] someone feels they know a (usually) celebrity because of the investment in time the person spends watching, commenting, interacting about the parasocial object,” she told Yahoo Life.
While they only really applied to celebrities (hence why reality TV is so popular and the tabloids so addicting), social media has led to more accessibility of parasocial relationships with everyday people. Now, when posting online, it’s worth remembering that there’s a chance wild assumptions may be made about your life. Alas, it’s part of the game.
As Kira wrote to someone calling her boyfriend a walking red flag, “It’s NOT that serious.”
The Mary Sue reached out to Kira via email.
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