Drunk Girl in Public

Submission 36,718

About

Drunk Girl in Public is a YouTube video in which a seemingly inebriated woman gets repeatedly approached by bypassing men who try to coax her into leaving with them. The clip was initially uploaded to YouTube under the guise of a social experiment, but it was subsequently revealed to be a hoax staged by a viral marketing company after many of the actors who participated in the production came forward to express discomfort with how they were portrayed.

Origin

On November 8th, 2014, the Video Productions YouTube channel uploaded a hidden-camera style video titled “Drunk Girl in Public (Social Experiment)”, which shows a woman getting approached by several men while looking heavily intoxicated on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles (shown below). In the first week, the video gained over 9.19 million views.

[This video has been removed]

Spread

Initially, the video was highlighted on several websites as an authentic social experiment. On November 10th, the men's interest blog Total Frat Move^[6] posted the video, adding that the men behaved predictably. On the following day, the news blog Salon^[2] highlighted the video in an article titled "Woman pretends to be drunk and asks for help, is approached by gross men being gross." In the coming days, additional news sites reblogged the video, including The Daily Mail,^[3] New York Mag^[4] and Jezebel.^[5]

Hoax Revealed

On November 12th, the news blog The Smoking Gun^[1] published an article titled “‘Drunk Girl’ Video is Latest Viral Hoax,” which reported that the video was produced by Stephen Zhang and Seth Leach, the CEO and business associate of LA-based online marketing firm Hygo Inc., who cast 24-year-old actress Jennifer Box and several men to appear in the video under the false premise of creating a funny skit for a student film. The article also linked to a screenshot of a Facebook message from Leach, the co-creator of the video, urging one of the male actors to “just go with it" and reassuring that his team would “take care” of him.

Actors Speak Out

On November 14th, the Inside Edition YouTube video uploaded interviews with two of the men in the video, stating they were tricked into thinking they would be performing a comedy skit (shown below, left). On November 17th, Jennifer Box uploaded a video revealing she was hired to act like a drunk girl in what she was told would be a "light hearted prank show" and apologized for her participation in the production (shown below, right).

[This video has been removed]