The man at the centre of a viral story has spoken out to discredit how it was originally reported.
The tale of ‘Cardboard Kevin’ originated on Reddit but was quickly picked up by news outlets and shared in every corner of the web.
As reported by the Daily Mail, the real Kevin was allegedly banned from going on a lads holiday to Montreal by his ‘incredibly controlling significant other’.
‘Cardboard Kev’ got up to all sorts of mischief that Reddit user AteMyWheaties implied would never have happened on his fiancée’s watch, including kissing a string of women.
Although Kev’s partner has no need to fear apparently, as AteMyWheaties said:
He literally hadn’t kissed a girl until he was 22. She was the second girl he kissed. If anyone doesn’t have anything to worry about it is her.
Someone reporting to be the real Kevin, posting under the username ‘TheCardboardKevin‘, tells the stroy very differently, however.
He explained he didn’t go largely because he has two infant children:
The Real Kevin Here. Let’s set this straight.
OP asks me if I want to go away for a birthday weekend. I say no day one. This was in January. I was never told where the trip was, only that I needed to go away from Friday to Sunday. That is it. I have a family, and my second daughter was just born. I didn’t want to be away from my family for 3 days. I love them. OP doesn’t seem to understand the concept of family as none of his like him. I propose to him that I bring my family on this undisclosed trip or that we do a day trip. OP says no.
So day one I was already not going on this trip. So months later (it is now April) they still haven’t told me anything about the trip. I find out that they are going to Montreal when I see the first picture on facebook.
The entire trip was planned to bring cardboard Kevin. I was not included in the planning process at all. Additionally, I don’t have a passport and they never told me I would need one. For those not aware, you need a passport to go to Canada. So even if I wanted to go I would have been unable to.
TheCardboardKevin suggested the whole trip was set up for viral purposes, and needlessly brought his fiancée into the equation:
Basically OP and and my amazing friends planned this the whole time as a big prank. And then as icing on the shit-cake they made me for my birthday, they decided to publicly shame my fiance in front of millions of strangers.
OP is a fantastic friend to have. You guys are welcome to be best buds with him because I personally am done.
This is the product of the big surprise my friends cooked up for me for my birthday. Thanks guys, you are the best friends someone could ever ask for.
Redditors were quick to sympathise with messages of support, and ‘InsideOutVoices’ even edited the images to tell a different story entirely.
The edited photos were uploaded to Imgur with the brilliant title ‘Friend’s evil “genius” boss wouldn’t let him go on birthday trip with friends… we brought him anyways.’
InsideOutVoices also posted the following message to accompany the images:
Replaced you with a different Kevin, hopefully this helps shift some of the public shaming to the minion. Sorry about your shitty birthday surprise.
It goes to show that there are two sides to every social media story.
