By Kevin Sears
Let’s do a random act of kindness. Walking down the boulevard, you notice a homeless man with a child desperate for food. The good Samaritan you are, you walk to the nearest deli and buy both of them a sandwich of their choice.
Mission accomplished! You helped a man and a child in need and in turn, you received a warm sense of appreciation that enveloped your heart.
But, do you think that man and his child would have been as grateful if you held a camera in his face while ‘donating’ those sandwiches?
Growing up with unfiltered access to the internet and social media, many children within ‘Generation Z’ have developed a disregard for the privacy of others within public spaces. From ‘got-cha’ prank videos to filming people in the gym without consent, videos focused on exposing or embarrassing people in public have become a concerning but popular trend across social media sites.
For example, influencers often film a “random act of kindness” towards a stranger in need. Although it is great to feed the poor, the influencers in question often film with disregard for the vulnerable people they are helping, and instead, use the vulnerability of that person for monetary gain and public praise.
Besides the questionable ethics behind profiting off of the struggles of others, even by helping them, a person in an uncomfortable and vulnerable situation does not need a video exposing them to their friends, family and the masses online for entertainment.
Unfortunately, this disregard for the privacy of others has proliferated beyond “random acts of kindness” and into the lives of normal people in public spaces.
Filming attractive people
We all love attractive people! Unfortunately, some people online have taken things a little too far. It’s not uncommon to see videos of people filming their crush or a cute person at a café while in public. More often than not, these videos do little harm and actually compliment the subject; however, the compliments used within these videos often hold sexual innuendos or stereotypes about the subject that are inherently belittling or uncomfortable.
In this TikTok by @bellefrancy, the user films a man minding his own business at a café. Within the video, @bellefrancy goes back and forth, secretly filming the man as he reads with a caption stating: “POV: you’re in Paris and you see a cute guy at a Parisian café reading an actual book.” Although @bellefrancy compliments the man by calling him cute, she obliquely insults the man with her disbelief of him reading while the man is minding his own business.
Prank videos
There is a fine distinction between the harmless joke of a prank and the malicious intent found in online prank videos. This distinction depends on how the prank affects the prankee. A good rule of thumb is that if the prankee is laughing along with the pranksters, then the joke was a “good prank.” However, if the prankee is harmed, whether visually or socially, then the prank crosses over into the realm of harmful harassment, which many “prank videos” online do.
For example, in this YouTube Short posted by Laugh4LifePrank, a woman ‘pranks’ a couple by flirtatiously touching the man. In response to being touched by the prankster woman, the couple leave the area. This YouTube Short is an example of a prank crossing into the realm of harassment because neither of the prankees found the prank funny and, rather, became uncomfortable.
Posting children online
Following the same line of reasoning that it is wrong to film someone in public without their consent, it is incorrect to film and post videos of children online without their parent’s permission. But what if it is the parents who are posting their child’s content online?
With over 18.3 million subscribers, the ACE Family is a YouTube channel that rose to fame through its family vlogs, prank videos and challenges. The channel is run by two parents, Catherine and Austin, along with three kids, Elle, Alaïa and Steel, who are often the subject of their videos.
Although it is often many children’s dream to be famous, the fame presented to these three kids has likely done more harm than good. At such a young age, these children were exposed to the hateful rhetoric of the Internet and have become associated with the “cringe” or “embarrassing” content of their parents. By posting their children online from such an early age, the ACE Family has forever marred the face and reputation of their children, which will follow them into adulthood and will likely impede their ability to make friends.
However, the fame bestowed upon the ACE Family and its three children is a unique situation that many parents won’t find themselves in. Nonetheless, parents should avoid posting pictures or videos of their children online because, like the ACE Family, these potentially embarrassing photos or videos of their children will follow them into adulthood and employment. Future job hirers may search up the name of their hirees during application and will be greeted with their applicant’s embarrassing baby photos.
Although the ACE Family misused their children for content and entertainment, it was never to the degree of another YouTube channel, the 8 Passengers. The 8 Passengers was a family vlog channel that rose to fame on YouTube and TikTok by posting raw, uncensored footage of their children’s private life and development. This footage included their children’s tantrums, disciplining, and puberty, which reached an audience of over one billion views.
Childhood is a period of dramatic change and growth, prone to mistakes and often embarrassing moments we choose to forget. Unfortunately, the internet lives forever, and any display of anger, sadness, disgust, and embarrassment is permanently contained within the unconsented videos that the parents of 8 Passengers posted of their children. These videos were not only seen online but thrived.
In 2023, the mother, Ruby Franke, and business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt, were arrested for four counts of child abuse for reasons separate from their YouTube channel.
DISCLAIMER: Although the 8 Passengers YouTube channel was deleted, footage from the channel can still be found online. The writer of this article advises against searching for this footage in order to not contribute to the further invasion of these children’s privacy.
Panopticon
First designed in the 18th century by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham, the panopticon was first conceived as a self-regulating prison. The regulation of the panopticon is reliant upon its unique architecture which consists of a roundabout and a center inspection house that enables a few correctional officers within a prison to unwittingly observe each prisoner within the prison without their knowledge. The effect of this design causes prisoners to self-regulate their behavior due to the fact that they cannot know if they are being watched by a correctional officer; therefore, prisoners are forced to act as if they are being watched by an officer at all times.
Although the panopticon was first contrived as a prison, the theory behind the panopticon has evolved into a metaphor for social media. Rather than prisoners and correctional officers, the inmates within the prison are ordinary, everyday people, while the officers have become any source of social media filming such as influencers, security cameras and social media sites.
People used to be able to make embarrassing mistakes in public. Either by saying an unpopular opinion or striking an unflattering pose, we all do funny things that should not receive more attention than a little laughter and an apology.
However, under the constant threat of being filmed publicly, either by other people or security cameras, ordinary people are unwittingly held in a metaphorical panopticon. If people now make an unpopular remark or strike an unflattering pose, while being filmed unknowingly in public, that person is now left to the will of the hateful masses of social media site’s comments and videos.
Rather than become the next victim of a viral TikTok, people in public are now forced to self-regulate their behavior so as to do nothing worthy of being filmed without consent online while in public.
The most dangerous of this social media-induced panopticon is its lack of forgiveness. People often change their minds or make mistakes and we learn from those mistakes. Nonetheless, viral TikToks rarely provide the full story or the response from the subject of a video to clarify their own mistakes. Therefore, providing whoever filmed no opportunity to ask for forgiveness from the masses or an opportunity to correct their mistakes. Rather, people have become forever marred in public by a constant, unforgiving, threat of being filmed un-consently while making a mistake.
