The Sandspur

Issue date: 2/26/07 Section: Life & Times

It used to be couples broke up quietly over dinner, over the phone, via e-mail, via text message.

But in the age of cell phone cameras and the video-sharing site YouTube, a breakup at the
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill has played out before thousands: 160,000 as of Tuesday and counting.

Professors are talking about it in their classes. Students are debating whether it was real or whether the couple _ Ryan Burke
and Mindy Moorman _ were acting.

The couple, both from Charlotte, N.C., aren't saying..

A friend told Moorman to be at The Pit, a sunken brick courtyard outside the student center, on Valentine's Day, she said.

She said she knew something was going to happen but not that her boyfriend of four months was about to dump her.

Burke started yelling. Moorman started yelling back.

"He wanted a show, so I helped give him a show," she said of the profanity-laced exchange. "I had to stand up for myself."

James Mundia, the Student Television station manager who posted some of the videos on
YouTube, thinks the breakup was fake.

"It just kind of seemed very forced and very contrived. What was said was very, very cliche," Mundia said. "There was no quivering, no stuttering. ... It was almost like they were reading a script."

The crowd ate it up. Burke invited people via
Facebook to come watch the breakup. In the exchange, he accuses Moorman of cheating on
him.

He said he got the idea after watching a couple break up on campus a few months ago.

"Everyone kept on walking but I just stopped and watched," he said. "I just thought it was
so interesting. And I thought it would be so interesting for people to watch that."

And Moorman?

Of all the comments she's received, she said her favorite came from her mother. "Did you have to say the F-word so much?" she asked.

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