Written by Chloe Laws
As a society, we are so used to seeing lazy, misogynistic tropes played out in the media that a man who praises or publicly loves their spouse is considered exceptional.
Let me introduce those of you who have not had the pleasure of hearing about this subset of famous men. The Wife Guy is someone whose entire public personality has been built around being married. He is dubbed the nicest of nice guys because, didn’tyouknow, he’s married. He likes to stand arms-open-wide next to his wife on the red carpet, showing the world that he’s not like other men; he wants his wife to shine. Look at her! Not me! I’m flapping my arms around her so you know it’s her moment, not mine!
But much like the Nice Guy archetype, all is not as it seems.
The term has been on Urban Dictionary since March 2021, defined as “a man who takes any opportunity to mention his wife in an admiring manner”. In 2019 The New York Times published an article titled The Age Of The Internet ‘Wife Guy’, making the internet slang a more established phrase, but it has really entered the public zeitgeist over the last few weeks.
This week, the poster boy for Wife Guys, Ned Fulmer, was outed for cheating. Ned, up until this news broke, was one-quarter of content creators The Try Guys. Keith Habersberger, Ned Fulmer, Zach Kornfeld and Eugene Lee Yang started their careers at BuzzFeed before carving their own path of internet stardom. They all present as one-dimensional characters, such is common in groups like this. Zach is the nerdy boy next door. Keith the friendly funny giant. Eugene is the sassy handsome breakout star. Ned, well Ned’s trope was even less fleshed out than his co-stars. He was the husband. The married one. The domesticated bliss one. The Wife Guy. His wife, Ariel, is so integral to his branding that she regularly appeared in videos with The Try Guys, and even hosts a podcast as part of the same company. Until, that is, he cheated on her with an employee. Not very Wife Guy of him.
Ned has sparked a discourse around these so-called Wife Guys, with Twitter user Rook Stone commenting: “One thing that was really missing from all the ‘Wife Guy’ discourse last week is that Ned Fulmer only became one because when he was with Buzzfeed comments about his wife on videos boosted his engagement, so he leaned in. This was…not organic,” while @candiedlinds added: “Ned Fulmer from the Try Guys cheating on his wife after his entire personality for years was loving his wife is the exact reason i do not trust men.”
There’s a whole cohort of men in this category who are put on a pedestal of masculine morality for, err, loving their wives. Ryan Reynolds, Joshua Jackson, John Legend, Prince Harry, Barack Obama, Hugh Jackman and Nick Jonas spring to mind. The bar is so incredibly low for men that those who vocally love their wives (like that isn’t integral to marriage) are admired so greatly that it’s become a commodifiable persona (see Ned). So, not only are they heralded as ‘better than the other guys’ they are also profiting from this bare minimum.
It’s a truly bleak manifestation of heteronormativity – this character can only exist because the opposite is so lacking. As a society, we are so used to seeing lazy, misogynistic tropes played out in the media that a man who praises or publicly loves their spouse is considered exceptional.
In my opinion, there’s a difference between the Wife Guy and a guy who (actually) loves his wife. Often the Wife Guy treats his spouse as an object in his act; she is secondary in his pursuit of proving just how good a husband he is. How much is about the woman as a person? Is she allowed to exist as a fully formed woman or does she have to perform as a character in this arc? Does the Wife Guy only love her when she is being wifey? Does she have a name? Or is she just called ‘my wife’?
Men like Ned have made careers out of being married, heteronormative monogamists. It’s dystopian to see someone monetise monogamy while not actually being faithful. It’s parasocial. And, hopefully, we’ll stop encouraging the existence of Wife Guys.
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