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In 2014, the Try Guys were a band of friends making YouTube videos for Buzzfeed. In short order, the four attracted a following for being unapologetically themselves. There was Eugene Lee Yang, the queer Korean American guy known for his wit. There was Keith Habersberger, who was tallest and from Tennessee, and Zach Kornfeld, who was a Jewish New Yorker. And, of course, there was Ned Fulmer, a wholesome Florida man who graduated Yale. The foursome entertained viewers by testing out ladies’ underwear, doing drag and attempting UFC fighting.
As the Try Guys grew older, so did their brands. In 2018, they would go on to start their own YouTube channel that now has over seven million subscribers, leaving Buzzfeed behind. Keith launched his own hot sauce for chicken and Eugene came out as gay in a well-choreographed music video commanding 20 million views. Ned, in particular, built his brand around being the ultimate wife guy, going on sweet dates with his wife, Ariel. Videos from the past few years were titled names like “Couple Tries Home-Cooked vs. $120 Roast Chicken,” a series that Ned continued until earlier this year.
It was this perfectly distilled brand of “good husband and father" that Ned cultivated over eight years that came crashing down on Tuesday afternoon, after cheating allegations surfaced. Fulmer admitted on social media that he had “a consensual workplace relationship,” after fans theorized he had cheated with Alexandria Herring, a producer on the Try Guys channel.
On Tuesday, Try Guys announced via all social media channels that Ned was no longer working with them. “As a result of a thorough internal review, we do not see a path forward together,” the channel said in a statement.
The fallout did not go unnoticed by viewers — some of them who had been tuning into the channel since the Buzzfeed days — days before Try Guys made any announcement. Fans claimed online that it looked like Ned had been edited out of recent Try Guys videos, such as the camera cutting to footage of three of the guys, but there being a fourth chair visible in the background. Starting last week, Try Guys videos began with montage photos that were missing Ned. Their Instagram account hadn’t posted content with him since September 4.
The ongoing media fury and obsession would not have happened if Ned had not built his entire career on being the perfect wife guy. Wife guys are men who are known for being extremely into their wives, and just won’t stop talking about how they are so married.
Ned had this branding down to a science, with his wife Ariel Fulmer featured prominently across most of his videos. He spent years going on public dates with Ariel in YouTube videos, even turning pregnancy announcements for his two sons, Wesley and Finley, aged 1 and 4, into content. In a video from 2016 titled, “Couples Break Up For a Week,” Ned laments how sad it is to pretend to be single for a week, while showing us wedding photos of him and Ariel. Removing his wedding ring, Ned cringes at the camera.
Fans on YouTube have compiled the number of times Ned has said the words “my wife,” often in a Borat voice. In a video called “Couple Gets Trapped with No Internet for 90 Hours,” Ned proclaims, “There’s no one I would rather spend 90 years with,” while Ariel looks on at him sweetly.
Try Guys videos capture a certain era of the internet. It was the mid 2010′s, millennial YouTubers who had crafted very specific personas were taking off, especially with the financial backing of Buzzfeed. They were also pumping out videos at a fast and, some would say, unsustainable rate.
Ned and Ariel found the branding that worked for them, which monetized very well. It was the kind of wholesome content the internet craved more of, as fans declared them to be the perfect couple and a good example of a working marriage with two supportive parents. It’s the same premise that then captured viewers’ fascination when it all came crumbling down. What’s a wife guy without his wife?
Adultery alone wouldn’t sustain headlines and Reddit speculation for days. It’s the fact that being a husband and father is what we mainly know Ned Fulmer for. He was an unlikely person for people to suspect would be at the heart of a scandal like this.
Tuesday’s news had people on the internet asking which men they could trust. Increasingly, the internet finds examples of wife guys who just can’t be trusted. John Mulaney, a comedian who had been very public about his loving marriage, shocked onlookers when he filed for divorce from his wife last year and announced he was having a baby with actress Olivia Munn. Adam Levine, who had sang songs about his wife of eight years, admitted in September to sending flirtatious texts to another woman, where he asked if he could name his child after her.
If another Try Guy, say one that had built a brand around being edgy and rebellious (Eugene) had been caught up in a similar scandal, it wouldn’t have captured our collective attention the way that Ned’s quick fall from grace did. Ned’s own admission of guilt and subsequent departure from the Try Guys became the source of an internet meltdown because we want to have good role-models for fathers and husbands. They’re just hard to find.
In the parasocial relationships we form with celebrities, where we feel like we know them, it can be especially bizarre and captivating to see the mask fall away in real time. YouTubers Myka and James Stauffer drew outrage when they announced in 2020 that they had rehomed a child they had adopted and filmed life with for more than three years. When people’s public personas are so inextricably tied to their marriages, to being a faithful spouse and good parent, only for that to be revealed as a façade, it can start to feel like everyone’s business.
Try Guys really invited us into their homes, their lives and their relationships. And fans ate that up. Now that things have gone downhill, they’re still eating it up.
