I guess it all began with Allen Funt.

If Allen knew what he would be starting, he would have opened a deli.

Back in the Fifties, he came up with the idea of using a hidden camera to record the reactions of innocent bystanders “in the act of being themselves.” He staged situations, sometimes Twilight Zones set-ups like a door that opened for everyone but the target, and filmed the results, first for a guest segment on TV talk shows and finally on his own, long running hit, “Candid Camera.” Funt would never have dreamed of using actors and faking the reactions, because first, he didn’t need to; second, if he was caught, it would ruin him; and third, he was an honest professional. The idea, however, has thoroughly metastasized in all directions, to “practical joke shows,” reality shows, and such monstrosities as ABC’s “What Would You Do?” and James O’Keefe. Perversions were limited as long as the shows were restricted to television, but now YouTube makes everyone a potential producer, and among the thousands trying to create a viral video, there are many, perhaps most,  who are not decent, ethical professionals like Allen Funt, but just greedy jerks who will gladly cheat, lie to and humiliate others to gain fame and fortune.

Thus the 35 million viewers attracting Hollaback video, discussed on Ethics Alarms here, spawned the” Drunk Girl in Public” video, which purported to show men plotting to take advantage of an attractive young woman who appeared to be drunk as a skunk. It however, turned out to be a fake. Described as a “social experiment” by creator Stephen Zhang, 20,  it was the inevitable and unavoidable result of a medium so democratic and so easy to manipulate that absent regulation,  nothing can prevent accelerating abuse.

Zhang is typical of what we have to look forward to. He wanted to top the Hollaback! video showing a woman being showered with whistles and catcalls as she walked past men in New York City, so he did it the easy way: fakery. The men shown in the video, each of whom is seen trying to lure “the drunk girl” to their residence or vehicle, were fraudulently recruited by Zhang and associate Seth Leach, who told them they would be participating in a student film project. Some of them were horrified that the video was put on line as real, with the “performances” they thought were part of a fictional work represented to the world as genuine creepery.

Leach boasted about the hoax on Facebook, writing that that the clip was “on the homepage of pretty much every news and media website you can think of.” He said he was“heading out to LA again tomorrow and creating some more viral videos for your viewing and learning pleasure!”  “We are the dream team!,” he exulted, and tagging the Facebook pages of Zhang, the actress who portrayed the “drunk girl,”, and soundman Chris Olmedo.

Yechhh. What this means is that we cannot trust anyone in public….not the imperiled mother, not the robbery victim, not the lost little girl, or the homeless pleader, or the bullied child. Anything and everything might be a trap for the kind, the courageous, curious or friendly. Every video that purports to prove anything at all may be a hoax. Since the world of commerce and the Kardashian culture of celebrity rewards sleaze, deception, outrageous behavior and infamy, there is literally nothing to discourage anyone from lying and tricking you for that video that will make them millions. (Was Kim really having sex on that video? Is that really her ass?) As with the hoax websites like News Nerd, and the authors of e-mail rumors, we can’t stop or even slow down this miserable trend because the culture rewards it in so many ways. All we can do is condemn it, realizing that the effort is futile, except in this small but crucial way:

People who are assholes need to know it.

______________

Source: The Smoking Gun