10 Hours of Walking in NYC

About

10 Hours of Walking in NYC is a viral video showing a woman walking through the streets of New York City while being catcalled, harassed and followed by various men.

Origin

On October 28th, 2014, the Street Harassment Video YouTube channel uploaded a montage video by the anti-street harassment advocacy group Hollaback, featuring GoPro footage of actress Shosana Roberts walking around New York City while being repeatedly catcalled by various men (shown below).

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Parodies

On October 30th, Funny or Die posted a parody video in which a white man is shown receiving praise and special treatment while walking around New York City (shown below, left). On the same day, YouTuber Shinji72 uploaded a parody video featuring non-player characters interacting with a female avatar walking around the role-playing game Skyrim (shown below, right). In 24 hours, the video gathered upwards of 383,000 views and 500 comments.

Also on October 30th, YouTuber Nada Original uploaded a video in which a man is shown walking the streets of Los Angeles as a drag queen (shown below, left). On November 2nd, YouTuber Ailert uploaded a parody featuring a solider from the game Battlefield 4 being harassed and followed in the game (shown below, right).

Spin-Offs

On October 31st, the ModelPrankstersTV uploaded a video of model Daniel Gavrilov being approached by both men and women while walking around New York City for three hours (shown below, left). Within one week, the video gained over 5.5 million views and 9,600 comments. On November 1st, YouTuber Szymon Majewski uploaded footage of himself walking in downtown Warsaw, Poland, without encountering any other people (shown below, right).

On November 3rd, the NZHerald YouTube channel uploaded a video featuring a woman walking in downtown Auckland, New Zealand without being catcalled (shown below, left). On November 6th, YouTuber AreWeFamousNow posted footage of a woman dressed in a hijab while walking in New York City (shown below, right).

Criticism

Following the release of the original Hollaback video, many criticized its creators for only showing clips of men belonging to minority groups. On October 30th, the news blog Slate^[2] published an article titled "The Problem With That Catcalling Video," which reported on those who found the video's representation of black and Latino men problematic.

Shoshana Roberts' Lawsuit

On July 14th, 2015, TMZ^[3] reported that Shoshana Roberts, the actress featured in the viral video, has filed a misappropriation lawsuit against Hollaback and director Rob Bliss for releasing the footage without her written consent or an agreement, asking $500,000 in damages for alleged violations of civil rights. Additionally, TMZ also reported that Roberts has filed a similar suit against the American casual dining chain T.G.I. Friday’s for promoting their brand in a parody advertisement titled “#AppCalling,” in which cutouts of various appetizers are superimposed over Shoshana as seen in the original video (shown below), and its distributors Google and YouTube.

In the coming days, the lawsuit was reported by several news media outlets, including The Daily Mail,^[4] NY Daily News,^[5] Mirror,^[6] New York Post^[7] and Business Insider.^[8]

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