Whether you’ve grown up with them or you’re just someone on the Internet, by now you’ve heard the name “Try Guys” everywhere. For those that are not aware of why you’re suddenly hearing about this random group of guys, allow for me to give you the full breakdown on what happened.
THe Background Information
The Try Guys first began on September 12, 2014 as they were formed through Buzzfeed. It contained four members: Keith Habersberger, Eugene Lee Yang, Zach Kornfield, and Ned Fulmer. The group was with Buzzfeed for four years, ending their time with them in 2018. Later that year, however, on June 16, 2018, the Try Guys announced that upon their departure from Buzzfeed they would begin their own private production company. This company would be named 2nd Try LLC, and it then later gained all the rights needed from Buzzfeed to become their own independent company while still holding the name of Try Guys which led to the creation of their own channel. All four of the members of the group became part owners of this new company and would continue working together to create videos, although there was also an expansion in employees and members of videos, such as the Food Babies who are their own group under the Try Guys. The company and group have only grown since they began, especially after beginning their own company, and many new projects have also been added under their company, such as the The TryPod podcast that they began in 2019 and a Food Network series No Recipe Road Trip with the Try Guys.
The main news as of recently has revolved around one member, Ned Fulmer, who was caught by fans cheating on his wife of 10 years. Ariel Fulmer is an interior designer that has been beloved by the Try Guys and fans alike, and has only grown as a presence on the channel since the beginning. She has appeared in multiple segments, including videos, Try Wives segments, and their You Can Sit With Us podcast. Since marrying Ned in June of 2012, the two of them have had two children: Wesley (4) and Finn (1). Since the beginning, Ned has always been known as the “Wife Guy” of the four of them because of how open he was about his affection and love for his wife. He would repeatedly mention her in videos, and fans felt a true connection to her through Ned, even before she became part of their channel. Because of this, a lot of fans felt strong reactions toward finding out that Ned had been cheating on Ariel with an employee of his, Alex Herring. Alex Herring was a member of the Food Babies, as well as fiancée to Will Thayer who she had been with for 10 years at that point.
The Timeline
September 26
It all began back on Labor Day weekend when Ned Fulmer was caught cheating on his wife, Ariel Fulmer, with an employee that worked for the company, Alex Herring. This was noticed by fans and brought to attention on September 26, 2022 when a Reddit thread was created, and has since been deleted and summarized on Twitter. In the thread, it is shown that there is a DM exchange between two people talking about Ned Fulmer and Alex Herring being seen together alone, dancing and kissing at a New York City bar, Niagra. Upon the thread being published, more evidence began to pile up against Ned, including Ned not appearing in videos around the time of the thread being published and Alex’s fiancée removing all photos with her and unfollowing her on Instagram. One of the larger pieces of evidence was an announcement made by the Try Guys that expressed that they would be limiting their videos to one per week on September 20, which confused fans as the schedule had previously been much more consistent.
September 27
On September 27, it was officially confirmed by the Try Guys that Ned Fulmer is no longer going to be working with them. The quick turn around and confirmation by the Try Guys following the leak of the affair took the Internet by storm and only began the long trending of the name Try Guys across social media platforms. That same day, Ned himself put out a statement. In it he acknowledged that “family should have always been [his] priority, but [he] lost focus and had a consensual workplace relationship.” The wording of the statement caused an eruption over all social media platforms as everyone believed it felt ingenuine and condescending. Ariel Fulmer also put out a statement thanking everyone for their continued support throughout the process that she is going through. Following all of this, the Try Guys updated their social media accounts to remove Ned Fulmer from their bios and profile pictures, instead leaving only the three remaining members, Keith, Zach and Euguene with their profile picture now being an orange background with a white outline of a triceratops.
Following the pure chaos that ensued after all of this was confirmed and commented on in one day, there was nothing new announced from the Try Guys, other than a short announcement stating that the TryPod podcast would be taking a week off and returning on October 6th.
October 3
On October 3, a video was released without warning onto the Try Guys channel titled “what happened.” In this 5:32 long video, Eugene, Zach and Keith are sitting together to discuss what they can at the time about the situation. It is reemphasized that Ned is no longer working with the group, and because of that there are a lot of legal issues that need to be sorted out regarding what can and cannot be said by the company regarding what happened. After being alerted by fans over Labor Day weekend, the three men reached out to Ned, who then confirmed the speculation, and the process of removal and how to address everything began. They all expressed that the news of finding out the rumors were true was just as devastating for them as it was for the fans, but they would not allow their personal feelings to take away from the fact that they would not sweep what happened under the rug and instead wanted to be open and honest about everything that they legally could. It was then stated that Ned had been officially removed from the group on Friday, September 16, and was then removed from videos that were going out after that when he could be.
October 6
After this video was released, a new episode of the TryPod was released on October 6. For the episode, only Keith and Zach were involved. This was later explained in the episode as Eugene had never enjoyed the podcast as much as the other two, and had elected to only be part of episodes on occasion. Most of the podcast is going more in depth with what they talked about in the video including talking about how Zach was the only one in the office when the news first broke during Labor Day weekend. A lot of the episode was also dedicated to getting the genuine and raw reactions of the two regarding everything. It was revealed by Keith that just days before he found out about the affair, he had been thinking about how incredible their careers had been with their new show on Food Network releasing and all of the new content that they had recorded to be published through the end of the year. He then expressed that finding out caused him to process it “as a trauma” because it was shocking and saddening to find out someone he had built a company and a personal relationship with had done something so terrible. Zach talked about how it had felt like “waking up from an eight year fever dream” because of how fast everything happened and seemed to crumble around him. Both of them also acknowledged how this was impacting fans and how they realize that it may be time for some people to take a break from the Try Guys because it can be too overwhelming to watch anything of theirs, and they fully understand that. Old videos are now being viewed in a new light, and it isn’t always going to be positive.
However, they concluded on a positive note. They talked about how they were all excited about the future of the company and the content as new content was being experimented with. This sudden change is the beginning of a new chapter of the Try Guys, and one that is going to expand on what was already established by the group. The group also decided that this new era would involve the three of them expanding on their own personal projects, along with their group projects.
My reaction as a fan
I’ve loved the Try Guys since the beginning of the Buzzfeed days. I had watched their videos for comfort because it was a short period where I could forget about my stress and just focus on four guys trying crazy things that I could never dream of doing. I did fall off a little bit with them, I will admit, because school got more demanding and I hadn’t gotten back into them until this previous summer when my sister randomly asked me to watch a video with her one night before we went to bed. This quickly became our new routine; we would turn on the Try Guys together frequently when we were both home and free. When we would make food at the house, we would turn on the most recent episode of the Keith Eats Everything series and when we needed something to watch at 2am, we would watch Without a Recipe.
Upon hearing about Ned cheating on Ariel, I was shocked more than anything else. My sister was the one who had informed me as soon as the Twitter thread from the Reddit rumors was up. We talked about it, and how we weren’t surprised that Ned was the one involved, but we were more so shocked that it had happened in the first place. I felt extremely empathetic to the remaining Try Guys because you can tell the genuine connection they all had when you would watch the videos. I haven’t watched any old videos again, or any of the new content other than the explanation video and podcast because it feels weird for me to watch them considering everything. Despite not actively watching them still right now, I am going to continue to support the remaining Try Guys as they navigate the future, as well as Ariel and Will who have to deal with the consequences of their long term spouses cheating.