The Try Guys Try Power Dynamics!

Following an internal review amid cheating allegations, popular Youtube group The Try Guys parted ways with founding member Ned Fulmer. Infidelity is not the only problem.

The Try Guys started as a group of four BuzzFeed employees: Keith Habersberger, Zach Kornfeld, Eugene Lee Yang, and Ned Fulmer. After going independent, its audience grew to 7.83 million subscribers. Contrary to other prominent Youtube channels, the Try Guys remained drama-free - emphasis on remained.

Cheating allegations against Fulmer surfaced over the week on Reddit. On the subreddit r/TheTryGuys, users alleged that Fulmer cheated on his wife - who he often talked about in Try Guys videos - with a junior employee at the group. These allegations soon made their way to Twitter.

Cami @camitwomeyy

1) A thread on the Try Guys Drama for those who don’t want to go to Reddit: (remember this is just speculation nothing is confirmed right now) #tryguys

On Tuesday, the group announced in a statement on Instagram that Ned is no longer affiliated with the group.

tryguys

A post shared by The Try Guys (@tryguys)

The central focus of these allegations is Ned cheating on his wife, despite Ned making his wife part of his persona on the channel. There is also another angle that is often overlooked regarding these situations: power dynamics.

The woman who Ned cheated on his wife with is a junior employee at the Try Guys company; he was one of the founding members and partial owner of the Try Guys. Teen Vogue news and politics editor Lexi McMenamin explains:

Lexi McMenamin | they/them @leximcmenamin

the try guy story is less about ppl’s parasocial obsessions w 4 dudes (though real) and more about the labor/gender politics of an “ally” executive building a public brand around his nuclear family then (allegedly) cheating with an employee—in a year of constant public misogyny

This dynamic could have resulted in something legal experts call a quid pro quo.

Latin for “in exchange for” or “this for that,” the term quid pro quo in regards to sexual harassment involves a sexual favor requested by a supervisor to a junior employee. According to Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute,

For sex discrimination purposes, quid pro quo is a type of sexual harassment under Title IX. Quid pro quo sexual harassment arises when a subordinate suffers a tangible adverse action as a result of the subordinate’s refusal to submit to a higher-up’s sexual demands. A tangible adverse action is one that constitutes a significant change in employment status (such as hiring, failing to promote, reassignment with significantly different responsibilities, or firing) that, generally, only a person acting with the authority of the company can cause.

Prominent men accused of sexual harassment, such as Harvey Weinstein, Bill Clinton, and Matt Lauer, have committed quid pro quo. Despite the infamous uses of the concept, many ask, “Why does the woman consent?”

Former TODAY production assistant and Lauer accuser Addie Collins Zinone answers this question in Variety. According to Zinone, Lauer invited her to lunch and aggressively hit on her. The 24-year-old production assistant felt she could not say no to the leading anchor who was a household name, in his 40s, and newly married. To afford potential retaliation, Zinone engaged in a consensual affair with Lauer rather than run the risk of turning him down.

Zinone writes:

The situation really took its toll on me. I changed physically. I changed emotionally. Fear crept into my life. I became unsure of myself. Any confidence I had was gone. For him, it was a conquest. One afternoon, he told me to come see him in his office.

The circumstances surrounding Ned Fulmer’s departure from the Try Guys are vague. The review of the allegations was internal, so we may never know what happened beyond the Reddit posts and video receipts. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have a conversation about power dynamics in the workplace.