Woman defends ‘unhelpful’ boyfriend after supermarket video goes viral: ‘Wasn’t that deep’

A video of a New Zealand couple using the self-serve checkout at the supermarket has divided social media.

Ella Monnery and her boyfriend Kings have been together for a year. The pair recently shared a video of themselves using the self-service checkout at a New World supermarket.

In the clip, the 27-year-old – who appeared on The Voice Australia in 2021, is in charge of scanning and bagging the groceries. Kings repeatedly tried to hand Ms. Monnery items from their shopping basket, but she kept putting them back and selecting items.

The pair start to laugh, and get a little silly before Ms. Monnery said Kings could be helpful and hand her his bank card so she could pay.

The video attracted a lot of attention, with 4.4 million views and close to 2300 comments.

Ms. Monnery told news.com.au that the pair often went grocery shopping together, and she had told him in the past how she liked to pack the bags.

But, when she set up the camera, he wanted to be helpful.

“It’s him obviously trying to be useful in the situation, but I feel like we all have our own strategic way of how we like to pack our shopping,” she said.

“I didn’t tell him what I was doing, I didn’t tell him how to help me. But, it’s quite funny as a lot of comments of women being like ‘stand out the way, and let me do it’ and men being so rattled in the comments asking ‘what are we supposed to do’.”

The singer had no idea that the video would have such a big reaction, and she added that King was so “unbothered” by the comments of people trying to say Ms. Monnery was being unfair as it “wasn’t that deep” and “baffled” that so many people are “pressed” about grocery shopping.

The video prompted a mixed reaction from the millions who saw it, with many saying their partners did the same thing and found it “relatable”.

“‘Give me your card’. The only helpful thing they can do when shopping,” one social media user commented.

One said: “You carry the basket. Stand back while they pack. Then you pay. Then you carry the bags. It is that simple.”

“I got mad at my bf cos he handed me BREAD before the milk like bbg … no,” another commented.

Another added: “This was me and my husband last week. I ended up saying ‘just go and stand over there for me please’.”

“Literally they’re so SLOW and don’t know how to pack. they have no sense of urgency. like MOVE let me scan,” another commented.

One social media user commented: “My husband sent me this video and it’s 100 percent the most relatable thing I’ve ever seen on the internet.”

But others suggested that Ms. Monnery was being unfair to Kings — noting he was trying to be helpful.

“I’m so confused why not take what he gives? They’re all the same stuffs does the price change when you reach for the one in the back,” one social media user commented.

One said: “You don’t need ‘help’ at a self-checkout, it is literally a one-person job. It’s like saying your bf is bad at helping you change channels on the TV bc it’s awkward to hold a remote together.”

“It’s so simple to just take the things he passes you??? Like what’s the reason for rejecting the items? EVEN IF UR BAGGING THEM DIRECTLY, you can scan and put them on the side of the bag,” one said.

Another commented: “Communicate your packing method! Communicate what you could use help with! Communicate anything at all instead of complaining!”

Ms. Monnery said in the beginning she found the reaction funny, but it’s now been pushing to audiences in the United States and United Kingdom. She said as a result, they’ve missed the intention of the video — which was just to document an innocuous moment — because they don’t get humour from New Zealand and Australia.

“A lot of the comments, I’ve had to delete because they’re quite negative, nasty and sexist,” she said.

Ms. Monnery wanted to emphasize the video’s aim wasn’t to publicly shame Kings, it was just a “funny” video together.