Viral drone date video on TikTok may not be so romantically spontaneous after all

Remember that TikTok video that went viral last week in which the twenty-year-old freelance photographer Jeremy Cohen shows how he lands a date with a ‘quarantined cutie' by sending his drone over with his phone number attached? Well, it turns out that maybe that drone date video was not so romantically spontaneous after all.

Right after the video was first launched, some viewers already doubted its authenticity. It just all seemed to be a little bit too good to be true.

One guy decided to do a deep dive and find out the truth. In an article on Medium, Peter Slattery tells us:

“With nothing but time on my hands thanks to social distancing, I decided to find out. When I reached Cohen by phone, he reiterated the same story featured in the original TikTok: that he simply glanced out his window, saw a girl dancing, and felt immediately compelled to send her a message via drone. “I can understand why people would think it was fake because it's, like, almost too good to be true,” he said. “But it's 100% real. I did not know her. I flew the drone from my roof to her roof, and then we started texting.”

Here is part 1, 2, and 3 of “Quarantine Cutie” all in one tweet pic.twitter.com/L9pnEV4oZM

— jeremycohen.eth (@jerm_cohen) March 29, 2020

It turns out that another previously unmentioned content creator was involved and had been with the girl on the other rooftop the whole time to help shepherd TikTok video creation along.

“Cohen maintains that his TikTok was not pre-coordinated in any way.”

Neither the other content creator nor the cutie made themselves available to comment on the record.

However, staged or not, it hasn't stopped the video from going viral. Nor has it stopped the subsequent videos of the two dining on opposite rooftops while FaceTiming or the ‘couple' walking together from gaining millions of views.

Cohen claims that his following on TikTok grew almost overnight to 600,000 followers from a mere 15,000 before. His photography is now featured on the cover of New York magazine. Mission accomplished!

For more Coronavirus-related drone stories click here.

Photos courtesy of Jeremy Cohen/TikTok