The harmful effects of the trend of testing fidelity

The trend of asking strangers online to test your boyfriend/girlfriend's feelings has become popular on social media. The hashtag #CheatersGetCaught has attracted 2.1 billion views through the TikTok application.

Liv Shelby (19 years old, living in England) earns a lot of money from this job and receives hundreds of messages every week. Most of her customers are women. They often ask Shelby to test the loyalty of their lovers by chatting flirtatiously.

“I don’t charge for the service, but I do ask that the videos be posted on my personal page. Of course, I will hide the names and edit them to avoid revealing the identities of the guys and their wives or girlfriends,” Shelby told the New York Post.

According to the content shared on TikTok, Shelby starts her work by directly messaging the other person, asking them to add her as a friend on Snapchat or give her phone number. Then, she records the person's reactions and every action to report to the customer.

Many people are willing to "play both sides" even though they already have a lover.

“Some men don’t expect to get caught cheating on their girlfriends. They may just think it’s easier to delete the conversation if things are at risk of getting exposed,” Shelby says.

Shelby said that many people who rejected her advances would later interact and contact her regularly.

This trend has become the inspiration for the movie “Cheat Detectives: The Loyalty Test”, which describes the job of “setting sweet traps” and testing the loyalty of couples.

In an interview, Rhona - whose name has been changed - shared that although she overcame the #CheatersGetCaught challenge, it still left her hurt and made her relationship worse.

When he discovered that a guy was flirting with her, Rhona's lover confessed that he had asked someone to test her and did not apologize.

“It has knocked my confidence. I have really struggled with my current relationships and haven’t been able to fall in love for more than three months since the incident. In my opinion, these ‘sweet traps’ don’t really address the growing problem of infidelity,” Rhona said.

According to Dr. Sanam Hafeez, a neuropsychologist at Columbia University (USA), this trend carries many risks such as retaliation or online criticism.

“This is not a healthy way to get rid of the fear of cheating. If your partner passes the test and finds out that you used a stranger to test them, they will be very disappointed. You will have to live with the guilt and destroy the trust and happiness of both of you,” Hafeez said.

Daisy Maskell, a broadcaster, noticed the trend exploding across online platforms and decided to investigate.

She observed that videos with the hashtags #CheatersGetCaught and #loyaltytest always have two opposing streams of comments. Some enjoy the breakup of strangers' relationships while others think that asking someone to test your lover is unhealthy.

“The #loyaltytest trend on social media is primarily seen as a form of entertainment. This is how young people who do this profession increase their followers. They create their own rules, exploit customers and turn them into a target for 'views',” Daisy said.

By Family