A Haim stan just trolled Australia's Seven News
"Andrew Haim" claims he was dumped at the Dua Lipa concert after a Ticketek malfunction.
Much of Sydney, including yours truly, descended on Sydney Olympic Park this week to see the one and only Dua Lipa (or Dula Peep, if you’re Wendy Williams) in concert. While the show itself was spectacular, Ticketek malfunctioning and preventing people from accessing their tickets and thus gaining entry to the concert was not so spectacular.
Just twenty minutes before Dua emerged on stage, one fan tweeted a complaint, tagging Qudos Bank Arena and Ticketek and writing, “thanks a lot. my boyfriend just dumped me because I wasn’t able to get us into the Dua concert”
Tom Sacre, a Sydney-based reporter for 7 News, saw the tweet the next day at 11am and replied, “really?”, to which @alanahaimoscar replied, “Yes :(“
And thus a news segment was born. @alanahaimoscar, who gave the name Andrew Haim to Channel 7 but who is not actually one of the Haim sisters, appeared on Sydney’s 7 News broadcast later that evening. In the segment, he doubles down on the claim that when his tickets wouldn’t scan, his boyfriend accused him of buying counterfeit tickets and dumped him.
The undisputed highlight is definitely Andrew sitting on a swingset trying, and in my opinion failing, to look forlorn.
Andrew himself posted a clip from the segment soon after it was broadcast, and almost immediately started tweeting jokes about it, including, “Where were you when the straw broke the camels back?” Meanwhile, his friends are making great use of gifs showing Andrew on the swing.
After the segment aired, the boyfriend in question tweeted: “JUST GOT BROKEN UP WITH ON NATIONAL TV”.
He’s also since tweeted this:
Just three hours ago, despite suggestions on Andrew’s Twitter profile that he was perhaps not being completely and deadly serious, 7 News doubled down by publishing an article online about his alleged break-up, accompanied by a clip from the previous night’s broadcast.
For me, this entire situation serves as a good reminder as to why newsrooms need journalists with a decent understanding of online culture - such journalists would have been more likely to twig that an account with the display name “beyonce haim” and a Taylor Swift profile photo was probably not run by someone with the literal surname Haim.
I have reached out to Andrew for comment, and will edit this post if he responds.
Edit: I asked Andrew if he was surprised that 7 News took his tweet so seriously as to send a news crew to his house, and he said, “Yes but no at the same time. I also think we live in such a negative world where people take everything too seriously, which is what made me go through with this to be honest.” What a noble mission.