A planned first date between 2 lovers on TikTok spiraled out of control after the guy canceled his flight

• Shelby Trischler and Mitch LoBuglio met online and he planned to come visit her.
• When LoBuglio had to cancel due to work commitments, Trischler was upset and posted a TikTok.
• Neither of them ever saw the influx of harassment coming that would paint them both as villains.

A tale of star-crossed lovers span out of control on TikTok when their planned first date fell apart, and both ended up painted as villains.

The narrative evolved as Shelby Trischler and Mitch LoBuglio told their sides of the story, with onlookers switching camps of who they supported multiple times.

The furore is an example of how intimate details can explode into view as TikTok vigilantes seek justice for those they perceive as having been wronged.

LoBuglio's bandmates were also swept up into the drama, and worried the backlash was so strong it could end their careers.

It started with a video Trischler got partway through making, where she planned to chart her relationship with LoBuglio as it began online, through to their first meeting.

She said she was getting close with LoBuglio, a guitarist in the band American Dream Machine. They met online, shared some jokes, and realized they had a lot in common, so they made plans for LoBuglio to fly across the country — from Virginia to Arizona — for their first date.

They essentially were long-distance dating, Trischler told Insider: speaking on the phone every day, and learning all about each others' lives. LoBuglio even met Trischler's 3-year-old son Dominic over FaceTime. Trischler was helping LoBuglio boost his band's popularity on TikTok, she said, because she had around 40,000 followers and had some tips on how to go viral.

She planned to finish the video with her picking LoBuglio up from the airport, both as a way to document their journey together, but also as a way to share his band's music, which would be playing in the background.

But the rendezvous never happened. LoBuglio canceled his trip, citing work commitments that he couldn't get round.

Trischler was upset, she told Insider, but understood that LoBuglio needed the money, and they agreed to rearrange.

Trischler also didn't want all the work on her video to go to waste, though, so she published it anyway on August 5, with a different ending than she'd planned.

"That's where I fucked up," Trischler told Insider. "Because I put 'he didn't come' instead of 'he wasn't able to come,' and so everybody took it as he ghosted me or he ditched me or something like that — which was not my intention."

The views quickly started racking up. Trischler said she kept LoBuglio in the loop, informing him of different milestones — 12,000 views, 25,000 — because she was excited that his band's music was being heard by so many people, like they had always talked about.

"Being like, hello, I'm helping your band. Look, it's happening," Trischler said. "I did not think that all the women on TikTok were going to freak out and be like, 'Who is this guy? Why is he hurting her?'"

While Trischler intended the video to be lighthearted, people in the comments became aggressive. They went to LoBuglio's and his band's accounts, harassing him on his page which had relatively few followers.

LoBuglio didn't respond to Insider's request for comment, but his bandmate Shawn Adams told Insider the reaction to Trischler's video was "wild."

"I thought it was the end of our career," he said. "I was like, we're done. Nobody even knows about us anyway. Now this is all they know about us. Like, we might as well just give up."

Adams said Trischler didn't say anything in her video that bad-mouthed them — she said their song "slaps" — but the people in the comments took it differently and "just started going in on Mitch."

This was when LoBuglio texted Trischler, asking her to take the video down, because the band was worried it would harm their reputation.

Trischler said at this point, she hadn't heard from LoBuglio in a few days, wasn't checking her phone much, and was trying to move on. When he asked about removing the video, she said "No," not thinking too much about it.

"It wasn't me being like, no F you, you get dragged through the dirt," she said. "It was just like, no, I'm busy, whatever. Just enjoy the publicity."

Adams said the band had a meeting and told LoBuglio to post his own video and tell his own side of the story.

LoBuglio, armed with screenshots, did just that.

"I was super excited to go see this girl," he said, responding to Trischler's TikTok, showing the receipts for the flight he was supposed to get on to go see her on August 10.

LoBuglio also seemed to accuse Trischler of painting him as the villain for clout, showing a few screenshots of their conversation — Trischler saying "No" to his request of taking her video down, and "Ur about to go viral. Ur welcome."

"She let you guys drag me and my band through the mud," LoBuglio said. "And I mean over half a million people drag me through the mud. And she just let it happen."

Adams said the reversal was "insane" after LoBuglio came forward. When people heard his side, and realized he hadn't ghosted Trischler, the hate comments subsided, he said. LoBuglio and the band started gaining thousands of followers too.

"The amount of love that we've gotten and the positivity that we've gotten since, it more than made up for that day and a half where we thought our careers were over," Adams said. "Now we actually have a shot, you know, we have a chance."

But LoBuglio's video took the situation to a whole different level of visibility, Trischler said. His TikTok amassed over 2 million views, and led thousands of people to turn on her instead.

"I wake up to, I think it was 40,000 messages or something," she said. "And the messages are like, fuck you bitch, we're gonna fucking find you. You're a fucking liar. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

As a single mom, she said, she has a pretty thick skin. But the response was so disproportionate, she said. It frightened her, and she set all of her accounts to private. People even started calling her place of work.

"I'm afraid to answer my phone, I didn't want to answer my door," she said. "I'll tell you when I posted that, I definitely didn't think I'd be going down this road."

"There's millions of people now that have seen this," Trischler said. "And it's turned into like, whose side are you on?"

That wasn't the intent at all, she said.

Trischler stepped back for a few days to gather her thoughts. But then she decided she wanted her voice to be heard. She un-privated her account and posted another video, apologizing for her lack of judgment with the initial one, and explaining she never intended to make LoBuglio look bad.

She said she has now asked LoBuglio to take down his video because the hate comments are getting out of hand. As of the time of publishing, all of LoBuglio and Trischler's videos are still up.

"I sent him screenshots of these threatening messages and people being like, your kid is fucking ugly, we're gonna come find you," she said. "I'm sending him these screenshots and I'm like, dude, you literally FaceTimed with me and my son for a month and were excited to meet us."

On August 13, LoBuglio posted another video thanking his new followers for support, but also urging people not to keep going after Trischler.

Adams said he understands how onlookers can get swept up in the drama between two people, but the hate directed at Trischler was "absolutely awful."

"She doesn't deserve any of that stuff either. Nobody does," he said. "That is so overblown and such a ridiculous reaction to something that you see on the internet that is just so trivial."

Trischler told Insider she is mostly over it now.

"I'm just freaking Shelby from Arizona," she said. "I'm not gaining anything from this, everyone's more invested than I am at this point."

Next week, she added, her ill-fated love story will be old news.

"It'll be Chelsea and Dan who are fighting on TikTok," she said. "Everyone will care about them instead of Shelby and Mitch."