Thanks to TikTok’s algorithm, which favors the wild and crazy, it won’t be long before another main character comes along and gets the Couch Guy/West Elm Caleb/Tabi Swiper treatment. Social media platforms sometimes have the power to deliver justice, but the dark side of the equation seems to be inescapable: vigilantism and harassment for all involved. There’s no easy solution to this pattern. But where’s the line? “He took some shoes - he didn’t commit a murder,” Jessica said.ĭougé told Jessica she was constantly being recognized: “They’ll say, ‘Glad you got your Tabis back!’” She also said she had received a surprising onslaught of online hatred. That’s not right, he shouldn’t get away with that. Josh, by his own admission, stole a pair of shoes. And the women who accused him soon began getting death threats. Internet vigilantes began tracking Caleb’s real-time location and calling West Elm to demand that he be fired. These stories quickly take on a life of their own. Before Caleb was Couch Guy, whose only offense was not getting off a sofa with sufficient enthusiasm when his long-distance girlfriend surprised him in person. I’m thinking here about West Elm Caleb, a man who in 2022 found himself TikTok’s main character after a number of women came forward to accuse him of bad dating behavior. (I’m still mourning some prized rain boots that were snatched from my gym locker.) But the whole situation has me thinking about Josh as the latest in a line of bad date villains who have been put on blast for the internet to judge. There is nothing worse than that powerless and unsettling feeling you get after realizing something has been stolen from you. Josh, perhaps unsurprisingly, declined to be interviewed. My colleague Jessica Roy interviewed Alexis about the whole mess. After a protracted public shaming, Josh came clean and gave Alexis her shoes back. It didn’t take the internet hive mind long to identify Josh, who had just given his girlfriend a pair of the same shoes. Alexis posted a TikTok video recapping the situation.
The following morning, after Josh left, Alexis discovered that her Tabi Mary-Janes - a pricey shoe from the brand Margiela with a polarizing cloven toe - were missing. This week, I found myself breathlessly refreshing TikTok and Twitter - still not ready to call it X, sorry - for the latest updates in the saga of the Tabi Swiper.Īfter a second date, a man named Josh went home with a woman named Alexis Dougé for the evening.
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