“The Try Guys” try cancelling – and I hope it works!

what happened

In the biggest pop-culture moment for The Try Guys (Zach Kornfeld, Keith Habersberger, Eugene Lee Yang, and Ned Fulmer) since they left Buzzfeed in 2018, it has been revealed that Ned Fulmer had an affair with one of their employees and has since been removed from the company.

The Try Guys were formed in 2014 under BuzzFeed’s digital media reign on YouTube. The four men tried new things every week: “The Try Guys Try Drag For The First Time,” “The Try Guys Try Magic Mike Stripping,” and “The Try Guys Become Santa,” to name just a few.

They created multiple series such as “without a recipe,” where they are given a meal or baked good to recreate without a recipe after the basics are explained by a local business, or “Eats the Menu,” where Habersberger literally attempts to eat the entire menu of a restaurant.

There’s also a series called “The Try Wives,” where some of the men’s wives partake by creating their own videos of a similar format.

The group left BuzzFeed in 2018 and created 2nd Try Productions, where they continued to create their series under their own management.

Ned “my wife” Fulmer was known through his entire YouTube career for how highly he spoke of his wife. Married in 2012 to Ariel Fulmer, Ned brings up his wife every chance he can get.

In a season of “Without a Recipe,” he devoted each thing he made to somehow fit his wife. The two also had a series on the channel called “Ned and Ariel.” They also have two children together.

On liberty day weekend, the remaining Try Guys shared in a tearful explanation video posted on Oct. 3. 2022, that fans reached out to them reporting they saw Fulmer engaging in romantic behaviour with one of their employees.

The employee is rumoured to be producer Alexandria “Alex” Herring. She joined the team in 2015, back when they were all still involved with BuzzFeed, and left with them in 2018.

Herring had reportedly been engaged and with her fiancé for 10 years — as long as the Fulmers had been married.

Upon hearing the rumours, according to the video,The Try Guys spoke with Fulmer, who admitted to having a “consensual workplace affair,” and a thorough investigation began over the next three weeks.

The remaining Try Guys said that the affair did not align with their values: during the investigation, Fulmer was being edited out of all the videos they were releasing, and he will no longer be working with the company.

As for Herring, it is unclear what is to come. She has been unfollowed by the remaining Try Guys, and it seems as though she is no longer with the company. When the rumours began, there were speculations that she could not be fired due to Fulmer’s position of power over her, that it was a lawsuit waiting to happen.

The remaining Try Guys posted a five-and-a-half-minute video on October 3rd entitled “what happened,” where they went into detail about the situation, how they dealt with it, and how they will continue to deal with it. At this time, they ask that Ariel Fulmer is given privacy to figure out what will be happening to her family.

why this is a big deal

For almost a decade now, The Try Guys have acted as role models within the digital world. Constantly taking on the challenge of toxic masculinity by experimenting with cross-dressing, makeup, and even just being vulnerable on screen, The Try Guys have carved out a space on the internet for empowered masculine friendships and communication.

They constantly attempt to showcase diversity; whether it be through Lee Yang’s Asian heritage or membership in the LGBTQ+ community, Kornfeld’s autoimmune disease, or inclusion of local businesses especially those owned by those in the BIPOC community, The Try Guys have created what was supposed to be a safe space.

Fulmer’s entire schtick had amounted to his love and devotion to his wife Ariel, and fans were there through their pregnancies, births, and big life milestones. His cheating feels like undermining everything they have created.

They’re supposed to be the “good guys.”

Cheating scandals are huge right now. Affair rumours of Adam Levine, who seemed similarly devoted to his wife Behati Prinsloo, have swirled in the past two weeks. Tristian Thompson cheated on Khloe Kardashian… again. Other cheating scandals are ironically commented on in this BuzzFeed article.

As a consumer myself, I think a lot of us are finding it so frustrating that the role models we’re looking up to are letting us down time and time again. Isn’t someone in a position where just under eight million people are subscribed (and more watching) supposed to be on their best behaviour?

Maybe not. To be fair, they did not sign up to be some shining example of morality. But, they did place themselves as advocates for millions of marginalized communities, simply by normalizing anything they could through their positions as (mostly) straight, white guys.

I can’t think of any other channel where I see a few guys go from putting on a strip show and getting their whole bodies waxed to trying to blow things up, make macarons, build furniture or sew a stuffed animal all without instructions.

They’re constantly challenging the conventions that they (as a sort of ‘every man’) otherwise would be silently confirming.

Historically, I think viewers are a lot quicker to forgive men for wrongdoings than women — they also touch on this in their video. I, for one, hope the way that they went about this cancelling, sticks around. Seeing them take accountability, and not a teary scripted apology where Ned would have come back in a few months honestly feels refreshing.

At the end of the day, I think they’re doing a great job at dealing with the situation. Their video, linked here, is almost a PR dream. I can literally see that they’re just as hurt as we viewers are. I’m proud of how the remaining Try Guys are dealing with it, and still proud to be a fan.

• cancel
• culture
• opinion
• youtube